What is Gross National Happiness?
Gross National Happiness (GNH) measures the quality of a country in a more holistic way, and believes that the beneficial development of human society takes place when the material and spiritual development occurs side by side to complement and reinforce each other.
The Constitution of the Kingdom of Bhutan states that: ‘The State shall strive to promote those conditions that will enable the pursuit of Gross National Happiness’.
Hon’ble Prime Minister of Bhutan, Tshering Tobgay: ‘We are balancing growth carefully with social development, environmental sustainability and cultural preservation; all within the framework of good governance. We call this holistic approach to the development of GNH’.
Four Pillars of GNH
1) Good Governance
Good Governance is a considered a pillar for happiness because it determines the conditions in which Bhutanese thrive. While policies and programs that are developed in Bhutan are generally in line with the values of GNH, there is also a number of tools and processes employed to ensure the values are indeed embedded in social policy.
2) Sustainable Socio-economic Development
A thriving GNH economy must value social and economic contributions of households and families, free time and leisure given the roles of these factors in Happiness.
3) Preservation and Promotion of Culture
Happiness is believed to be contributed to by the preserving the Bhutanese culture. Developing cultural resilience, which can be understood as the culture’s capacity to maintain and develop cultural identity, knowledge and practices, and able to overcome challenges and difficulties from other norms and ideals.
4) Environmental Conservation
Environmental Conservation is considered a key contribution to GNH because in addition to providing critical services such as water and energy, the environment is believed to contribute to aesthetic and other stimulus that can be directly healing to people who enjoy vivid colours and light, untainted breeze and silence in nature’s sound.
GNH Index in summary
- Measures progress in holistic way
- Emphasizes individual GNH
- Person’s GNH individual GNH
- Depicts how GNH and its indicators change over time.
In order to foster measurement of a holistic range of GNH values, a domain-based framework has been adopted. The framework contains nine domains and 33 indicators of GNH.
GNH Index looks at each person’s GNH, using panel key indicators of wellbeing across the nine domains of GNH. Each person’s GNH is reflected in his or her own GNH score. GNH Index draws on every person’s portrait to compute the national value. The nine domains remind us to incorporate all vital aspects of wellbeing into our plans and action. All the nine domains are equally important to achieve happiness from GNH point of view. The ideal scenario would be for people to live relatively balanced lives across nine domains.
The GNH Index is embedded in Bhutan’s national development plans and shapes public policy through tools like GNH Policy and Project Screening Tools.
His Majesty King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuk: ‘What GNH ia will never change but how we achieve it will change’.