A just post-growth transition hinges on reclaiming the capacity of democratic institutions to plan and deliberate collectively and to make decisions about production, distribution, and care based on human need and ecological boundaries, not economic expansion. Capacity-building therefore becomes a form of institutional emancipation: expanding the public sector’s ability to act autonomously from growth imperatives and the profit-driven sector’s dominance. Conventional training for public servents often reproduces growth-centric logics: efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and competitiveness.
Moving beyond GDP, by contrast, requires capacities grounded in rights, wellbeing, and ecological balance.
This policy focusses on two key dimensions:
- Capacity building for public administration: Establishing permanent programs to train civil servants in rights-based, citizen-centric policymaking. This includes systems thinking, anticipatory planning, wellbeing budgeting, and participatory governance, and revamping bureaucratic incentives. Public officials must learn to evaluate success through wellbeing, care, and ecological indicators, not GDP, and integrate long-term scenario planning with citizen participation.
- Empowering civil society and social movements: Fund and strengthen civil society networks that engage in participatory research, social audits, and community monitoring of public programs. Civil society is not a stakeholder but a co-governor of transitions — capable of surfacing lived experience, mobilising accountability, and grounding policy in real needs. Support should include flexible grants, training in data use and rights advocacy, and infrastructure for digital participation.
