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The Royal government of Bhutan launched the Tenth Five Year Plan that outlines strategies from 2008-2013 to reduce poverty and to increase education initiatives. The particularity of the Plan is that it does not only aim at poverty reduction but the single unifying idea that guides the nation’s long term development is the Bhutanese concept of maximizing Gross National Happiness: “Maximise the happiness of all Bhutanese and to enable them to achieve their full and innate potential as human beings.” Chapter 1 outlines the background and gives an overview of the past economic performance and the future social development trends.Chapter 2 contains the outlook and a Vision of Bhutan for the year 2020 which projects that Bhutan will emerge to become a respected and active member of the international community and a country recognized for its role in promoting peace and stability in the region. Economically, the Vision pictures that hydro-power led development and growth will have helped the country achieve a high degree of self-reliance, with much of the responsibility for the financing of development in its own hands. The availability of low-cost hydro-power energy and resource endowments deriving from electricity export revenues are anticipated to help transform the industrial landscape in Bhutan with the development of a wide range and host of clean industries and high-technology enterprises. Socially, the Vision anticipates that in 2020, providing equitable access to and delivering improved quality social services across will no longer be an issue. The Vision 2020 expects that the country will in that time boast a health care system comparable to those in developing countries with highly developed indigenous medicine expertise and capabilities. With regard to education, the Vision 2020 envisages that Bhutan will have the full range of institutions required for the formation of all relevant knowledge and skills. In terms of the state of the natural environment, the Vision 2020 is optimistic that the natural environment and natural resource endowments will still be richly intact, with 60 percent of the country forested and sizeable tracts of protected national parks and reserves harbouring an incredibly rich bio-diversity, the envy of many nations. The vision anticipates that the environmental conservation approach will be dynamic rather than static and will not merely treat natural resources as something to be preserved but as an immense asset that can also be sustainably and wisely utilized for socio-economic development. In terms of good governance outcomes to be attained by 2020, the Vision anticipated the full development of the country’s governance and legal institutions and the emergence of a system of jurisprudence based on a body of law respected by all.Chapter 3 lays down provisions relating to poverty reduction. Sub chapter 8 sets out the major development targets, such as agriculture sector growth, population living below poverty line, sustaining access to safe drinking water, hydropower generation capacity. Chapter 4 concerns the macro-economic outlook. The Plan shall ensure a strong and stable macro-economic framework within which the planned socio-development activities will be implemented to achieve its core objective of poverty reduction. The Royal Government will continue to manage public finances in a highly prudent and proficient manner and will generally address this through enhancing domestic revenue to become more self-reliant, managing expenditures effectively, maintaining a healthy overall balance of payments position, implementing appropriate fiscal and monetary policies to contain inflation, and keeping deficits and debt burdens at sustainable levels.Chapter 5 is entitled “Cross-Cutting Development Themes” and deals with decentralized government, employment, women in development, information and communications technology and environment. It is strongly felt that the process of decentralization is not entirely complete. Efforts to implement the final aspects of decentralization will need to be undertaken. The elements of final decentralization will include the introduction of rationalized discretionary annual grants for all local governments based on a formula that takes into consideration factors of population, geographic area and poverty. The main objectives for Local Governments are: poverty reduction; enhanced democratic local governance; and effective and efficient service delivery. As far as poverty is concerned, it is envisaged that local governments that administer regions with weak food security will receive higher allocation of resources. Furthermore, the Chapter deals with the gender situation in Bhutan and it is stated that in many ways, Bhutan’s gender situation is regarded to be favourable and positive. However, an analysis of the current situation and data reveals that women are at a disadvantage in some areas and that gender gaps does still exist. As such, there remains a need to strengthen and develop appropriate policies and strategies that take into consideration the different needs, roles and capabilities of women on the basis of the principles of gender mainstreaming. Part 5 of this chapter lays down provisions relating to the environment. The objectives of the environment sector are to: 1) ensure sustainable development in conservation of environment; 2) disseminate environmental information and raise awareness among the general public; 3) move towards a cleaner environment; 4) mainstream environment issues into development policies, plans and programmes; 5) develop appropriate environmental legislation; 6) develop environmental standards; fulfilling country’s obligations of multilateral environment agreements; 7) enforcement of environmental legislation; and 8) coordination for water resources management. The above objectives for the environment sector will be addressed through the following strategies and initiatives: 1) Development of appropriate policy and legal frameworks; 2) Compliance monitoring; 3) Provision of environmental services; 4) Decentralizing environmental governance and networking; 5) Strengthening environmental information management system to support and improve decision making; 6) Public education and awareness on environmental issues; 7) Utilizing environmental assessments as a tool for sustainable development; 8) Building and strengthening institutional capacity; 9) Mainstreaming environmental issues in sectorial plans, projects and programs of all government agencies; and 10) Development of appropriate legal and policy framework for water resources management.Chapter 6 concerns Renewable Natural Resources. In particular, the policy objectives in this context are to: a) enhance sustainable rural livelihoods through improved agricultural and livestock productivity and expansion of commercial prospects of agriculture and other natural resource endowments; b) conserve and promote sustainable commercial utilization of forest and water resources; c) promote sustainable utilization of arable agriculture and pasture land resources; d) enhance Food Security through sustainable and enhanced food production and availability, improved access to food and enabling effective distribution, marketing and import of food; and e) transform subsistence agriculture to small scale commercial agriculture without compromising food security. Chapter 7 relates to Trade, Industry and Tourism and Geology and Mines. The main objectives of the Trade Sector for the period are to: a) alleviate poverty through trade; b) enhance contributions from trade to the national economy; c) create a liberal and enabling environment for the growth of the private sector; d) pursue trade liberalization and support private sector development; e) enhance employment and revenue generation; f) ensure stable market access for Bhutanese products; g) promote competition and fair trade practices; h) Promote efficient distribution of goods and services; i) strengthen institutional and professional capacity of the sector to fulfil its mandate; and j) enhance growth of exports, particularly convertible currency exports. Chapter 8 deals inter alia with Energy, in particular with Water Resources and Hydro-power Development in Bhutan. The overall objective of the Energy Sector is the sustainable development and efficient use of energy resources for socio-economic development. This will be achieved through accelerated hydro-power development to provide environmentally clean, safe, reliable, equitable and affordable access to energy. The latter is expected to contribute towards economic growth and self-reliance and improved quality of life and income-earning opportunities of the poor. The specific strategies to achieve the above objective are: a) accelerated development of additional mega hydro-power plants; b) development of small, mini and micro-hydels where on-grid connectivity is difficult; c) expansion of rural electrification; and d) identification and utilization of alternative sources of energy. Chapter 9 addresses aspects of education and claims that the main thematic objective for the education sector will be to enhance access to and improve the quality of education. Chapter 10 concerns health issues and the overall thrust of the present Plan is to improve the quality of life of the people within the overall development philosophy of Gross National Happiness (GNH). Health is an undeniable pre-requisite to happiness and at the root of enhancing human capabilities and thereby highly critical for achieving the goal of GNH. Chapter 11 relates to “Roads and bridges” and its main objectives are to: a) provide road access to all backward centres; b) reduce poverty incidence and improve the quality of life of rural population through enhanced rural accessibility; c) enhance national security and solidarity through improved/expanded road network. Chapter 12 on Urban Development establishes that the Royal Government will implement several programmes to further strengthen and develop the urban infrastructure and services of the two major cities and several towns. Chapter 13 and 14 deal respectively with Media and Transport and aim to improve alls aspects. Chapter 15 is entitled Culture and argues that the conservation and promotion of cultural traditions, heritage and institutions has always featured as important objectives in all of the five year plans and is an integral aspect of the national development vision and Gross National Happiness (GNH) And last not least chapter 16 deals with “Sport”. The policy objectives include improving the country’s performance in sports at the national, regional and international levels; altering the attitudes and mentality of people towards the values and importance of sports, recreation and fitness; improving access to sports facilities and information on sports in general; establishing adequate physical and organizational structures for promoting sports for the physically disabled; promoting traditional sports and interactions with external sports organizations.
