Aug 22, 2011

UN Adopts GNH

The United Nations General Assembly appealed to Member States to undertake steps to give importance to happiness and well-being as a marker of social and economic development. The General Assembly invited countries “to pursue the elaboration of additional measures that better capture the importance of the pursuit of happiness and well-being in development with a view to guiding their public policies.” The resolution said “the pursuit of happiness is a fundamental human goal” and embodies the spirit of the globally agreed targets known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Bhutan was also asked to convene a panel discussion on the theme of happiness and well-being during the Assembly’s next session in September. Essentially GNH pioneered by Bhutan was a commitment to build an economy that would serve Bhutan's unique culture based on Buddhist spiritual values. The concept was developed by the Centre for Bhutan Studies. The adoption of the concept of GNH by the UN General Assembly is a boost to Bhutan’s initiative in this sphere. Bhutan’s proposal to include happiness and a holistic approach to development was made by the Prime Minister at the 65th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York in 2010 and it has been well received thus within a short while the same has been approved as a MDG. The reasoning is that since happiness is the ultimate desire of every individual, the purpose of development should be to create enabling conditions for happiness.

Bhutan will continue to provide leadership in development of the concept, implementation, and promotion and translate happiness in terms of public policy among the members of the UN family. This will give considerable boost to Bhutan’s international standing being a pioneer in development of the proposal. How happiness is to be measured however will remain debatable over a period as different standards may be adopted by various countries based on their intrinsic culture, value systems and state of economic development.