Ladies and Gentlemen!
Very Good afternoon
After I picked number “3”from the
lucky dip, for a couple of minutes, I was thinking what should I present to my
international friends especially as I am second, number one being our
coordinator who has already spoken. What subject could make my friends
interesting? At certain point I even thought I should sing a Bhutanese song
which needs no preparation and any ways no one can understand it. Or should I
tell a short story? These were some of the questions I was asking to myself. I
turned to two of my friends and casually asked them on what topic should I
speak. Both of them suggested me to speak on Gross National Happiness as I am
the first Bhutanese to speak in this august gathering. So finally I decided to
speak on this topic even though I am not an expert on GNH. I was once again
worried when Mr. Soren Villadsen informed the class that Bhutan has different
method to measure the welfare of their citizen and he is going to discuss this and
find out what this new animal is in the forest. If he is going to discuss
should I stick to it? By then only a few hours left for me to really prepare
this topic which deserves our best effort.
Due to many limitations, I will not be able to comprehend this topic
within this few minutes. Never the less, I will try to at least give you some
idea on GNH. By the way Bhutan is a Buddhist kingdom in the Himalayan region in
Asia tucked in between China in the North and India in the South. Some choose to
call the “Last Shangrilla”.
You all will agree that all most
all countries measure their development using GDP methods. In Bhutan however,
we measure the growth of our country by Gross National Happiness. Our forth
King in 1970s when he was a teenage young boy pronounced that “Gross National
Happiness is more important than Gross Domestic Product”. Since then now more
than 4 decades back Bhutan´s journey with GNH began. Our king then realized
that existing development paradigm-GDP didn’t consider the ultimate goal of
every individual that is to achieve Happiness. Our king thought that if all our
trees are cut down and sell, our GDP will increase. Such an act of neglecting
our environment will cause flood and other related damages and more investment
would be required to mitigate them. This would further increase GDP but not
necessarily improve the lives of people. On the other hand conventional GDP
doesn’t take into account the volunteer work we do and also free time we relax
and socialize. Therefore, GNH is more important.
Now what is GNH? GNH is defined
as a “multi-dimensional development approach that seeks to achieve a harmonious balance between material
well-being and the spiritual,
emotional and cultural needs of our society.” (Website of GNHC). It is
basically about holistic, sustainable and inclusive growth of the country. As
said by an American management guru Peter Drucker, “What get measured, gets
done”, since 2008 precise metrics to measure GNH was initiated.
GNH has four pillars and nine
domains
1.
Sustainable
and equitable Socio Economic Development
a.
Living standards
b.
Education
c.
Health
2.
Preservation
and promotion of culture
a.
Cultural diversity and resilience
b.
Community vitality
c.
Time use
d.
Psychological well-being
3.
Conservation
of environment
a.
Ecological diversity
4.
Good
governance
a.
Good governance
Each of these domains has certain
numbers of indicators and sub indicators to measure as objectively as possible.
Now in Bhutan we try to
mainstream elements of GNH into all our plans or programmes. And all our
progammes and plans have to pass to through GNH Policy and Project Screening
Tool which ensure that relevant dimensions of GNH are considered in a
systematic way while assessing policies and projects.
Lastly, I would like to clearly
state here that presenting on GNH doesn’t mean that Bhutan has attained GNH.
Like most of the developing nations we too are struggling with challenges of
fulfilling the basic needs of our people. But at least we have GNH as our developmental
goal that makes us unique from others. Never the less, I am happy to report
that GNH index is 0.743 in Bhutan. Also Bhutan is one of the top 20 peaceful
countries in the world to live in according to the recent Global Peace Index. The
General Assembly of the United Nations in its resolution
66/281 of 12 July 2012 proclaimed 20 March the International Day of
Happiness recognizing the relevance of happiness and well-being as universal
goals and aspirations in the lives of human beings around the world and the
importance of their recognition in public policy objectives as proposed by
Bhutan. Thus many countries are now increasingly seeing GNH as an
alternative goal for development.
This is in nut shell what GNH
is. If you are interested, please google
on GNH. I am sure the browsers are bombarded with articles on GNH. As I said,
this topic deserves much more time and effort.
Thank You
