Gross National Happiness (GNH)-Bhutanese Philosophy of Development

GNH philosophy was propounded by the Fourth Druk Gyalpo Jigme Singye Wangchuck.

His Majesty said, “National development must never be at the cost of happiness and spiritual contentment of the people.”

GNH is technically defined as a “multi-dimensional development approach seeking to achieve a harmonious balance between material well-being and the spiritual, emotional and cultural needs of society.” The keywords being harmonious balance – that may be achieved by balancing the needs of the body with those of the mind.

The Great Fourth was convinced that Bhutan’s aim of development should not be merely economic prosperity but contentment and happiness, ‘which includes political stability, social harmony and Bhutanese culture and way of life.’

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Four Pillars of GNH

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 are also a number of tools and processes employed to ensure the values are indeed embedded in social policy.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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 colors and light, untainted breeze and silence in nature’s sound.

 

Nine Domains of GNH

Gross National Happiness (GNH) is a metric used by Bhutan to measure economic happiness and moral progress as an alternative to GDP.

GNH evaluates prosperity through quality-of-life factors such as well-being and economic factors, rather than purely monetary measures.

GNH measures the quality of development in a more holistic way and believes that the beneficial development of human society takes place when material and spiritual development occur side by side.

It is currently being used as the overall framework for Bhutan’s development programmes and increasingly being presented to the outside world as a new model of development, which takes into account many other factors influencing human well-being besides economic growth.

Article 9, Section 2, states “The State shall strive to promote those conditions that will enable the pursuit of Gross National Happiness.”

***The General Assembly of the United Nations, on 12 July 2012, proclaimed 20 March as the International Day of Happiness.The world has recognised that happiness and well-being are universal goals and aspirations in the lives of human beings.