IPANZ and SOLGM have secured the opportunity for you to engage in conversation with Jane Davidson (the former Minister for the Environment and Sustainability in Wales who proposed what is now the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 and Sophie Howe (the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales).
The Office of the Future Generations Commissioner was established under the Wellbeing of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 (see https://www.futuregenerations.wales/about-us/). The legislation was enacted to help safeguard the interests and wellbeing of future generations and encourage long-term policy thinking within the Welsh Government, public bodies and local government. It requires public institutions to contribute to seven specific wellbeing goals and have regard to five particular ways of working.
This webinar brings together political and administrative perspectives and provides an opportunity to learn about, and draw lessons from, the Welsh experience. We will explore the history – how did the Wellbeing of Future Generations (Wales) Act come about? What was the political context which drove this new approach? We will also explore the issues of implementation – how is the Act working and what difference is it making? What are the practical problems and barriers, and how are they being addressed? What are the enablers and ways of driving progress? Above all, what can we learn from this landmark legislation about how to improve the quality of long-term governance and better protect the wellbeing of future generations in Aotearoa New Zealand?
These are critical issues for public sector professionals in local and central government, in our shared worlds where embedding effective, systemic, long-term thinking and action is of utmost importance.
About our speakers
Jane Davidson is the author of #futuregen: Lessons from a Small Country. She is Pro Vice-Chancellor Emeritus at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David. From 2007- 2011, she was Minister for Environment and Sustainability in Wales where she proposed legislation to make sustainability the central organising principle of government; the Wellbeing of Future Generations (Wales) Act came into law in 2015. She is a RSA Fellow and in 2017 was guest faculty in the Executive Education for Sustainability Leadership programme at Harvard University's T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Sophie Howe - Future Generations Commissioner for Wales.
Sophie took up post in 2016 and has led high profile interventions around transport planning, education reform and climate change challenging the Government and others to demonstrate how they are taking account of future generations.
Described by the Big Issue Magazine as one of the UK’s leading Changemakers, her interventions have secured fundamental changes to land use planning policy, major transport schemes and Government policy on housing - ensuring that decisions taken today are fit for the future.
She has represented Wales at the UN the OECD and on a number of International Forums including Chairing the Network of Institutions for Future Generations.