' A Recipe for DEMOCRATIC RENASSANCE "RECEIVING A PRESTIGIOUS HONORARY DOCTORATE HIS HIGHNESS AGA KHAN" proposes three pre-requisites to securing the

' A Recipe for DEMOCRATIC RENASSANCE "RECEIVING A PRESTIGIOUS HONORARY DOCTORATE HIS HIGHNESS AGA KHAN" proposes three pre-requisites to securing the success of pluralist democracy.

• H.H. Aga Khan regretted that the advancement of democracy no longer assured a progressive agenda " Democracy and Progress do not always go hand in hand"
• "Cosmopolitan social patterns" had not yet been match by " a cosmopolitan ethic"
• Today globalization has dissolved tight bond between community and geography.
• H.H.Aga Khan propounded three pre-requisites to nurturing healthy and competent democracies:
1. Stronger Civil Society Institutions

"Government do not alone make democracy work"

Private Initiative is also essential including a vital role for those institutions which are collectively described as 'CIVIL SOCIETY'"

2. Rigorous, Responsible and Relevant Education

"We must do a better job of training leaders and shaping institutions to meet more demanding tests of competence and higher standards of excellence"

This entails moving beyond the notion that better education simply means wider access to formal learning.

"We must accompany our concern for quality education with a heightened concern for quality. Are the curricula we teach relevant to the knotty problems of the future? Or are we still providing a 20th century education for 21st century leaders?"

An important goal of quality education must be to equip each generation to participate in "the great conversation" of our times. That is being unafraid controversy but also being sensitive to the values and outlook of others.

"Ignorance, arrogance, Insensitivity these attitudes rank high among the great public enemies of all time. And the educational enterprise, at its best, can be an effective antidote to all kind of them".

3. Turning to the third suggestion for strengthening democracy, the renewed of ethical commitment H.H. Aga Khan IV noted that whereas democratic processes were about sharing power, the sharing in & of itself, means little apart from the purpose for which the power is finally used. He argued that we need to look at whose interests we seek to serve and for what ultimate goals.

"The search for justice & security, the struggle for equality of opportunity, the quest for tolerance & harmony, the pursuit of human dignity these are moral imperatives which we must work & think about on a daily basis", he averred.