Gross National Happiness: a bad idea whose time has gone

Alan Beattie | Sep 04 07:00 | 32 comments | Share

Raising a standard against happiness is never going to be popular, but here goes.

The mountain kingdom of Bhutan has got a lot of mileage out of its practice, first adopted in 1972, of using a broad “Gross National Happiness” (GNH) measure of its people’s welfare rather than a narrow measure like income.
According to the many people who have fallen in love with the idea – the UN went as far as declaring March 20 the “International Day Of Happiness” – a holistic approach to welfare reflects more accurately the many dimensions of wellbeing in the human condition. The philosophy has been urged upon rich and developing economies alike as the proper goal of government policy.
Unfortunately for its international enthusiasts, its originators are losing faith. Tshering Tobgay, elected with a thumping majority last year in only the country’s second parliamentary election, has distanced his government from the concept. “If the government of the day were to spend a disproportionate amount of time talking about GNH rather than delivering basic services, then it is a distraction,” he said. “Rather than talking about happiness, we want to work on reducing the obstacles to happiness”. His campaign promised more practical advances including a motorised rototiller for every village and a utility vehicle for each district.
This is a welcome development for two reasons. One, Bhutan’s GNH, defined from the top by an autocratic monarch, was a deeply illiberal means of legitimising undemocratic rule and failed utterly to prevent grotesque abuses of human rights. Two, it has distracted from much more constructive and democratic ideas of running countries in the interests of their citizens’ wider wellbeing.
Mr Tobgay’s disillusionment underlines the obvious problems with trying simultaneously to hit a bunch of vaguely-defined targets (for which see also the Millennium Development Goals and their successors) – but even more so of allowing authorities to decree what they consider the happiness of their citizens to be.
The GNH is assessed by asking survey respondents about a variety of indicators, from more conventional issues like health and education to more nebulous concepts like emotional fulfilment and perceived national ecological sustainability. It is noticeable that the haziest ones seem to do better: the highest-scoring indicator is “Values”, denoting that Bhutanese tend to concur that murder, stealing, lying, creating disharmony in relationships and sexual misconduct are a bad thing. Good for them, but, on the other hand, less than half of respondents are happy with their literacy, employment opportunities, government services and schooling.
Such outcomes are hardly surprising: the autocratic monarchy that ruled Bhutan until the first free elections in 2008 substantially failed to deliver better lives for most of its duration. Literacy is still only around 50 per cent, and only around half of children attend secondary school. Most Bhutanese are still subsistence or other small-scale farmers, unemployment is rife and suicide rates are alarmingly high. Corruption in government is believed to be widespread.
Moreover, GNH has proved no guarantee of individual human rights. Taking it at face value, you would never know that Bhutan has for decades been carrying out a brutal ethnic cleansing policy against the country’s Nepali-speaking minority. Once around a sixth of the population, a “Bhutanisation” campaign that began in the 1980s resulted in tens of thousands of Nepalis being expelled from the country. Their houses were seized or burned down and people deported for speaking Nepali, refusing to eat beef (Nepalis are generally Hindu while ethnic Bhutanese are Buddhist) or declining to wear traditional dress. The displaced are still living in refugee camps in Nepal, or have been resettled in the US or elsewhere: none has been allowed to return.
GNH defines and imposes a unitary set of values that does not protect diversity or individual rights, or at least addresses them only in ways that can be defined and controlled by the government. It is a communitarian view of the world distinctly reminiscent of Hu Jintao’s ideal of a “harmonious society”, a concept frequently cited by the Chinese government when clamping down on free speech and dissent. It should give GNH’s foreign supporters a long pause for thought that as soon as Bhutanese voters had a choice after decades of dictatorship, they threw out its backers and brought in its critics.
The international attention given to GNH is doubly irritating because it has managed to distract attention away from more transparent and participative attempts to measure wellbeing, coordinated among others by the OECD. Several governments have made serious attempts to work out what makes their citizens happy by the novel procedure of asking them, not defining it on their behalf.
The best way of finding out what makes people happy is watching what they do, or what they spend their money on. It’s notable, for example, that the perennial surveys of the world’s most liveable cities, which always seem to end up recommending Copenhagen and scorning London, are generally at odds with where internationally mobile people actually choose to live. The criteria of the survey’s designers are evidently not the same as those of real people actually making decisions.
Of course, not every expression of wellbeing can be judged or delivered by the free market. Services like universal healthcare do not function well in the private sector, and there are negative growth externalities like pollution, noise and traffic which require a wider measure of welfare. Still, the guiding principle is that concepts of wellbeing need to be expressed through the market where possibly and democratic choice where necessary, not imposed by technocrats – and particularly not used by autocratic governments to suppress individual choice.
As for the future of GNH in Bhutan, Mr Tobgay seems to have exactly the right idea. He wants the king (now happily reduced to the role of a constitutional monarch) to proselytise for it in an abstract way, much as Queen Elizabeth II is sent abroad to chunter vaguely about Britain’s enduring values while the UK government gets on with running the country according to what its voters want.
Poor farmers need more motorised rototillers to work their land and fewer autocratic monarchs commanding them to be happy in a manner decreed by the state. Measures of wellbeing need to be debated and tested rather than dreamt up and imposed. Bhutan’s “Gross National Happiness” has attracted praise from gullible foreigners, but at home it has acted as a cover for serious failures of governance and severe abuses of human rights. Its demotion is entirely to be welcomed.

Gross national happiness in Bhutan: the big idea from a tiny state that could change the world

Bhutan measures prosperity by gauging its citizens' happiness levels, not the GDP. Now its ideas are attracting interest at the UN climate change conference in Doha

The principles of Bhutan’s gross national happiness system are spelled out for pupils at a secondary school in Paro, a largely agricultural region.  Photograph: Jean-Baptiste Lopez/UNICEF

A series of hand-painted signs dot the side of the winding mountain road that runs between the airport and the Bhutanese capital, Thimphu. Instead of commands to cut speed or check mirrors, they offer the traveller a series of life-affirming mantras. "Life is a journey! Complete it!" says one, while another urges drivers to, "Let nature be your guide". Another, standing on the edge of a perilous curve, simply says: "Inconvenience regretted."
It's a suitably uplifting welcome to visitors to this remote kingdom, a place of ancient monasteries, fluttering prayer flags and staggering natural beauty. Less than 40 years ago, Bhutan opened its borders for the first time. Since then, it has gained an almost mythical status as a real-life Shangri-La, largely for its determined and methodical pursuit of the most elusive of concepts – national happiness.
Since 1971, the country has rejected GDP as the only way to measure progress. In its place, it has championed a new approach to development, which measures prosperity through formal principles of gross national happiness (GNH) and the spiritual, physical, social and environmental health of its citizens and natural environment.
For the past three decades, this belief that wellbeing should take preference over material growth has remained a global oddity. Now, in a world beset by collapsing financial systems, gross inequity and wide-scale environmental destruction, this tiny Buddhist state's approach is attracting a lot of interest.
As world leaders prepare to meet in Doha on Monday for the second week of the UN climate change conference, Bhutan's stark warning that the rest of the world is on an environmental and economical suicide path is starting to gain traction. Last year the UN adopted Bhutan's call for a holistic approach to development, a move endorsed by 68 countries. A UN panel is now considering ways that Bhutan's GNH model can be replicated across the globe.
As representatives in Doha struggle to find ways of reaching a consensus on global emissions, Bhutan is also being held up as an example of a developing country that has put environmental conservation and sustainability at the heart of its political agenda. In the last 20 years Bhutan has doubled life expectancy, enrolled almost 100% of its children in primary school and overhauled its infrastructure.
At the same time, placing the natural world at the heart of public policy has led to environmental protection being enshrined in the constitution. The country has pledged to remain carbon neutral and to ensure that at least 60% of its landmass will remain under forest cover in perpetuity. It has banned export logging and has even instigated a monthly pedestrian day that bans all private vehicles from its roads.
"It's easy to mine the land and fish the seas and get rich," says Thakur Singh Powdyel, Bhutan's minister of education, who has become one of the most eloquent spokespeople for GNH. "Yet we believe you cannot have a prosperous nation in the long run that does not conserve its natural environment or take care of the wellbeing of its people, which is being borne out by what is happening to the outside world."
Powdyel believes the world has misinterpreted Bhutan's quest. "People always ask how can you possibly have a nation of happy people? But this is missing the point," he says. "GNH is an aspiration, a set of guiding principles through which we are navigating our path towards a sustainable and equitable society. We believe the world needs to do the same before it is too late."
Bhutan's principles have been set in policy through the gross national happiness index, based on equitable social development, cultural preservation, conservation of the environment and promotion of good governance.
At a primary school in Thimphu, the headteacher, Choki Dukpa, watches her students make their way to class. She says that she has seen huge changes to the children's emotional wellbeing since GNH principles were integrated into the education system four years ago. She admits that at first she had no idea what the government's policy to change all education facilities into "green schools" meant.
"It sounded good but I wasn't sure how it would work," she says. But after Unicef funded a "green schools" teacher training programme, things improved. "The idea of being green does not just mean the environment, it is a philosophy for life," says Dukpa.
Alongside maths and science, children are taught basic agricultural techniques and environmental protection. A new national waste management programme ensures that every piece of material used at the school is recycled.
The infusion of GNH into education has also meant daily meditation sessions and soothing traditional music replacing the clang of the school bell.
"An education doesn't just mean getting good grades, it means preparing them to be good people," says Dukpa. "This next generation is going to face a very scary world as their environment changes and social pressures increase. We need to prepare them for this."
Despite its focus on national wellbeing, Bhutan faces huge challenges. It remains one of the poorest nations on the planet. A quarter of its 800,000 people survive on less than $1.25 a day, and 70% live without electricity. It is struggling with a rise in violent crime, a growing gang culture and the pressures of rises in both population and global food prices.
It also faces an increasingly uncertain future. Bhutan's representatives at the Doha climate talks are warning that its gross national happiness model could crumble in the face of increasing environmental and social pressures and climatic change.
"The aim of staying below a global two-degree temperature increase being discussed here this week is not sufficient for us. We are a small nation, we have big challenges and we are trying our best, but we can't save our environment on our own," says Thinley Namgyel, who heads Bhutan's climate change division. "Bhutan is a mountainous country, highly vulnerable to extreme weather conditions. We have a population that is highly dependent on the agricultural sector. We are banking on hydropower as the engine that will finance our development."
In Paro, an agricultural region one hour out of the capital, Dawa Tshering explains how the weather is already causing him problems. The 53-year-old farmer grew up in Paro, surrounded by mountains and streams, but has found it increasingly difficult to work his two acres of rice paddy.
"The weather has changed a lot: there is no snow in winter, the rains come at the wrong times and our plants get ruined. There are violent storms," he says. Around 70% of Bhutan's people are smallholder farmers like Tshering.
"The temperature has got hotter so there are more insects in the fruit and grain. I don't understand it, but if it continues we're going to have many problems in growing food and feeding ourselves."
Bhutan is taking action to try to protect itself. Ground-breaking work is being done to try to reduce the flooding potential in its remote glacial lakes. Yet it cannot do it alone. Last week in Doha, campaigners pushed for more support to countries such as Bhutan that are acutely vulnerable to climate change.
"While the world is now starting to look to Bhutan as an alternative model of sustainable economics, all of its efforts could be undone if the world doesn't take action in Doha," says Stephen Pattison from Unicef UK.
"Small and developing countries like Bhutan must get more support, and the UK and other governments must start actually taking action, like pledging their share of money to the green climate fund and get it up and running as soon as possible."
In Paro, teenagers in school uniform heading home from lessons are well aware of the hard times ahead for Bhutan as it tries to navigate a path between preserving its sustainable agenda and the global realities it faces. All say they are proud to be Bhutanese. They want to be forest rangers, environmental scientists and doctors. At the same time they want to travel the world, listen to Korean pop music and watch Rambo.
"I want to be able to go out and see the world but then I want to come home to Bhutan and for it to be the same," says Kunzang Jamso, a 15-year-old whose traditional dress is offset with a hint of a boyband haircut. "I think we must keep the outside from coming here too much because we might lose our culture, and if you don't have that then how do you know who you are?"

GNH Policy & Project Screening Tools

The 2008 GNH Index did not stand alone. Rather, a set of project and policy screening tools were developed to complement and specify it for different purposes.

GNH indicators serve as evaluative tools to track developmental progress over time.  GNH indicators as targets display a common sense of purpose, offering us direction to the programmes and policies which are coherent with the values of GNH. However, we need other tools to maneuver towards GNH targets in order to know whether we are actually advancing in the right direction. For instance, we may have very good indicators but unless the projects and polices are checked and ensured that they are pro GNH: it would be difficult to translate the principles of GNH to practice. Therefore, it is very important to have externally measurable pro-GNH screening tools.

Centre for Bhutan Studies has come up with a simple GNH screening tool. The main objective of this tool is to systematically assess impacts of any policy and project on GNH, thereby simultaneously selecting GNH enhancing policies and projects and rejecting projects and policies that adversely affect key determinants of GNH.

I. Methodology

The GNH screening tools can be applied in two phases, at project level and policy level. Generally, it consists of three types:

1.  For all ministries and sectors (e.g. good governance)

2. For respective ministries (e.g. education, health)
3. For individual sectors (e.g. youth, employment)

However, the calculations are the same for all the three forms of screening tools.

I. Screening question

Each screening question has 4-pointer scale ranging from 1 to 4. This 4- pointer scale is ranked from the most negative to the most positive score. For the given example below, 1 denotes a negative score, 2 uncertain, 3 is a neutral score and 4 denotes a positive score.

CBS has developed such screening questions covering nine domains of GNH. So, all policies and projects have to pass through these questions in order to test their applicability in enhancing the values of GNH.

II. Calculation

Lets consider for example: policy A is being tested on its impacts on stress levels, culture and physical exercise. Therefore in this example, policy A will be subjected to GNH screening tool containing only three screening questions; stress, culture and physical exercise.

Positive score = 4 X Number of screening questions

= 4 X 3 = 12

Neutral score   = 3 X Number of screening questions

= 3 X 3 = 9

Policy A has to score at least 9 which is the average neutral score to be accepted. If it scores below 9, then it calls for either review or rejection of the policy.

In the current example, policy A scores 4 in stress, 3 in culture and physical exercise. The combined score is 4+3+3 = 10. Since, the combined score is above 9 (neutral score) we accept policy A and conclude that it has no negative impacts on culture, physical exercises and that it does not increase stress levels.

Similarly, various policies and projects can be tested with respect to all the key issues of GNH under domains of health, psychological wellbeing, ecology, community vitality etc.

III. Scoring

A heterogeneous group comprising of qualified experts and professionals from different occupational background would be assessing the GNH screening tools. As mentioned earlier, the tools could be applied at both project and policy level. Some of the general characteristics of the heterogeneous group are as follows;

1) Should have sound knowledge of the subject matter on which the screening questions are based

2) Must be recognized as a reliable source of skill or technique whose faculty for judging or deciding rightly is accorded by their peers and public

3) Involved as regulatory body or as a service user

The GNH screening tool forces project sectors to consider GNH dimensions in project formulation process. As the screening tools require all policies and projects to be subjected in terms of other dimensions of life (eg. Culture, community vitality etc.), it ensures a holistic approach to project development. It also acknowledges unknown potential effects and penalizes the project. Furthermore, as the scoring is done by a heterogeneous group, it provides diverse occupational backgrounds to work towards a consensus about project impacts.

Nine domains

1. Psychological Wellbeing
2. Standard of Living
3. Good Governance
4.Health
5.Education
6.Community Vitality
7.Cultural Diversity and Resilience
8. Time Use
9. Ecological Diversity and Resilience

Bhutan GNH Index

GNH: Concept

Gross National Happiness is a term coined by His Majesty the Fourth King of Bhutan, Jigme Singye Wangchuck in the 1970s. The concept implies that sustainable development should take a holistic approach towards notions of progress and give equal importance to non-economic aspects of wellbeing. The concept of GNH has often been explained by its four pillars: good governance, sustainable socio-economic development, cultural preservation, and environmental conservation. Lately the four pillars have been further classified into nine domains in order to create widespread understanding of GNH and to reflect the holistic range of GNH values. The nine domains are: psychological wellbeing, health, education, time use, cultural diversity and resilience, good governance, community vitality, ecological diversity and resilience, and living standards. The domains represents each of the components of wellbeing of the Bhutanese people, and the term ‘wellbeing’ here refers to fulfilling conditions of a ‘good life’ as per the values and principles laid down by the concept of Gross National Happiness.

The GNH Index: What is it?

The Gross National Happiness Index is a single number index developed from 33 indicators categorized under nine domains. The GNH Index is constructed based upon a robust multidimensional methodology known as the Alkire-Foster method

.

The GNH Index is decomposable by any demographic characteristic and so is designed to create policy incentives for the government, NGOs and businesses of Bhutan to increase GNH. The 33 indicators under the nine domains aim to emphasize different aspects of wellbeing and different ways of meeting these underlying human needs. The 33 indicators are statistically reliable, normatively important, and easily understood by large audiences. The domains are equally weighted.  Within each domain, the objective indicators are given higher weights while the subjective and self-reported indicators are assigned lower weights.

The 2010 GNH Survey:

The Gross National Happiness survey was carried out in 2010 with representative samples taken at district and regional levels. The survey was administered using the GNH questionnaire which gathered data on a comprehensive picture of the wellbeing of Bhutanese. The survey gathered data from 7142 respondents; 6476or 90.7% of the respondents had sufficient data to be included in the GNH Index.

The 2010 GNH Index: Highlights

The methodology basically provides three types of results: headcount, intensity and the overall GNH index. Headcount refers to the percentage of Bhutanese who are considered happy, and intensity is the average sufficiency enjoyed by the Bhutanese.

• Headcount= 40.9% – This means that 41% of Bhutanese have sufficiency in six or more of the nine domains and are considered ‘happy’.
• Intensity = 43.4% -The 59% of Bhutanese who are not considered ‘happy’ lack sufficiency in 43% of the domains. Nine domains times 0.43 = 3.87. Thus unhappy Bhutanese on average lack sufficiency in just under four domains and enjoy sufficiency in just over five domains.
• GNH Index = 0.743 – the GNH Index ranges from 0 to 1. A higher number is better. It reflects the percentage of Bhutanese who are happy and the percentage of domains in which not-yet-happy people have achieved sufficiency (headcount and intensity).

What else did the GNH Index reveal about happy people?  Here are some highlights:

• Men are happier than women on average.
• Of the nine domains, Bhutanese have the most sufficiency in health, then ecology, psychological wellbeing, and community vitality.
• In urban areas, 50% of people are happy; in rural areas it is 37%.
• Urban areas do better in health, living standards and education. Rural areas do better in community vitality, cultural resilience, and good governance.
• Happiness is higher among people with a primary education or above than among those with no formal education, but higher education does not affect GNH very much.
• The happiest people by occupation include civil servants, monks/anim, and GYT/DYT members.   Interestingly, the unemployed are happier than corporate employees, housewives, farmers or the national work force.
• Unmarried people and young people are among the happiest.
• There is quite a lot of equality across Dzongkhags, so there is not a strict ranking among them. The happiest Dzongkhags include Paro, Sarpang, Dagana, Haa, Thimphu, Gasa, Tsirang, Punakha, Zhemgang, and Chukha.
• The least happy Dzongkhag was SamdrupJonkhar.
• The ranking of dzongkhags by GNH differs significantly from their ranking by income per capita. Sarpang, Dagana, and even Zhemgang for example, do far better in GNH than in income.
• In terms of numbers, the highest number of happy people live in Thimphu and Chukha – as do the highest number of unhappy people!
• Thimphu is better in education and living standards than other Dzongkhags, but worse in community vitality.