Bhutan Biodemocracy and Resilience (BBR) Conference is a collaborative project between the Centre for the Study of Democracy (CSD), University of Westminster, UK and the Center for Local Governance and Research (CLG) Bhutan. The project Principal investigator is Dr Nitasha Kaul. The project co-investigators are CLG Founder, Tharchen and Co-founder, Sangay Khandu.

Between 2019 and 2021, the collaboration has organised five events, viz., Bhutan: Biodemocracy & Resilience Conference 2019 (BBR 2019), Bhutan: Biodemocracy & Resilience Conference 2020 (BBR 2020), Early Career Researchers Conference on Development and Resilience in Bhutan 2021 (ECR), Gender and Development Workshop: Women’s Participation in Local Government (GDW), and an Essay competition on Developmental challenges in Bhutan and how to overcome them.

The first of the five events the project organised, the 2019 BBR deliberated on further building twin environmental and developmental challenges of the future drawing lessons from Bhutan’s environmental stewardship. In 2020, the Conference was organised virtually to reflect and learn on cross-sectoral challenges and the need to build resilience given the impact of the pandemic. Three separate events were organised in 2021 as a part of the project. The Gender and Development Workshop: Women’s Participation in Local Government (GDW) saw women leaders in the Local Governments share their experiences starting from challenges women face in participating in elections and working in and with Local Governments. The ECR Conference aimed at nurturing young researchers saw presentations ranging from  governance, economy, agriculture, environment, technology to culture. To encourage young Bhutanese to think critically and offer non-partisan perspectives in overcoming development challenges in Bhutan across social, economic, cultural and political spectrums, an essay competition on “Developmental challenges in Bhutan and how to overcome them” was organised for Bhutanese undergraduate students.

For details about the specific events, please click the tabs above.