National Development Planning and Sustainability: The Case of Bhutan

Mark Turner () and Dawa Wangchuk
Additional contact information
Mark Turner: School of Business, University of New South Wales Canberra, Campbell, ACT 2612, Australia
Dawa Wangchuk: Faculty of Business, Government and Law, University of Canberra, Bruce, ACT 2617, Australia

Sustainability, 2025, vol. 17, issue 7, 1-19

Abstract: Bhutan is a developmental success story that since the 1960s has consistently used five-year national development plans to make substantial socio-economic progress and promote sustainability. Many other developing countries had abandoned medium-term national planning by the 1980s, but Bhutan continued using these instruments as the principal mechanisms for developing the country and making substantial welfare gains for its population while attending to the sustainability of its development path and environment. Poverty has been greatly reduced, incomes have grown in real terms, life expectancy has markedly increased, there has been enormous growth in the provision of education and the country has become a world leader in environmental protection with 71% of Bhutan still under forest, making it the first carbon negative country in the world. The reasons for Bhutan’s success include always working within the capabilities of government, economy, and society; a demonstrated capacity to reorient development strategies with new plans; a stable political environment; good governance; the gradual inclusion of multiple stakeholders into the development process; a strong supportive relationship with neighbouring India; and the wise use of income from hydropower to fund development. Though there have been disruptions, mistakes, and failures in planning in Bhutan, the general trajectory of solid progress and continued attention to sustainability has been maintained; however, there are considerable challenges ahead for the ambitious Thirteenth Five-Year Plan (2024–2029). To investigate the Bhutanese experience, this article adopts a qualitative case study approach.

Keywords: national planning; developing countries; Bhutan; sustainable development; gross national happiness; socioeconomic development (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/7/3261/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/7/3261/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:17:y:2025:i:7:p:3261-:d:1629134

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().