By Syed Zarir Hussain
IANS
Thimphu : Hollywood star Cameron Diaz just couldn't believe when she was told during a private visit to Bhutan that the country's wealth was measured by the happiness of its citizens.
"My favourite thing about Bhutan is they measure their country's wealth, not based on dollar amount, but on gross national happiness," Diaz told a reality show on MTV.
The celebrity actor heard that right. A nation of just about 700,000 people that ranked near the bottom of the world's development scale, Bhutan simply couldn't compete economically when the standard is production and consumption. So it came up with a unique way to measure progress, an alternative to the world's economic scale.
Instead of attaining a higher gross domestic product (GDP), the official goal here is Gross National Happiness – a policy decreed by former King Jigme Singye Wangchuck to try and reflect the true quality of life in a more holistic manner.
"A buoyant economy means rising incomes and employment opportunities. However, GDP figures cannot measure the well-being of the country's nationals, as it only accounts for goods and services that pass through the formal markets," said Tshering Dorji, a young overseas educated businessman in capital Thimphu.
For investors, forecasts of higher GDP growth signify higher corporate earnings and lead investors to bid up share prices. But the king had an altogether different vision for his citizens.
"The former king was more interested to know if the kids were going to school and maintaining a good health, whether the forest cover was well protected, or if expectant mothers were getting adequate healthcare facilities," Gopilal Acharya, editor of the Bhutan Times, the nation's first independent weekly newspaper, told IANS.
The policy seems to be reaping the desired results – 72 percent of the country is still forested, healthcare is free, and a study conducted by the University of Leicester in Britain, ranks Bhutan as the planet's eighth happiest place, ahead of the US and Canada.
Sociologists compiled data from 178 countries and 100 global studies to map happiness across the world. Most of Africa and the former Soviet republics were at the bottom of the list.
Burundi, Zimbabwe and Congo were the world's least happy places. Denmark topped the chart, while nations such as Japan and France languished at 90th and 62nd respectively in the happiness graph.
"The fact that people are not greedy, consumerism is yet to seep in, and the Bhutanese are content with the traditional lifestyle realising their own limitations is what makes us a happy nation," said Kaka Tshering, chief editor of the Bhutan Broadcasting Service TV, the national broadcaster.
Following Bhutan's footsteps, the UN in 1993 harped on the theme of human development index (HDI) by focusing on three measurable dimensions of human development – living a long and healthy life, being educated and having a decent standard of living. Thus it combines measures of life expectancy, school enrolment, literacy and income to allow a broader view of a country's development than does income alone.
Though Bhutan's economy is one of the worlds smallest, it has grown rapidly from eight percent in 2005 to 14 percent last year with the per capita income pegged at $1,321. Bhutan's small economy is based on agriculture, forestry, and the sale of hydroelectric power to India. Agriculture provides the main livelihood for more than 80 percent of the population. Agrarian practices consist largely of subsistence farming and animal husbandry.
The industrial sector is minimal, production being of the cottage-industry type. Agricultural produce includes rice, chillies, dairy (yak) products, buckwheat, barley, root crops, apples, and citrus and maize. Industries include cement, wood products, processed fruits, alcoholic beverages and calcium carbide.
Today Bhutan is on the road to democracy and, when a new parliament is formed next year, the nation will usher in the country's Tenth Five Year Plan.
The main thrust of the Plan has been prioritised as poverty reduction in line with the national development objective of improving the quality of lives of all people.
To promote sustainable livelihoods in rural areas, where more than three quarters of the population lives, UNDP in collaboration with the Royal Government of Bhutan is currently preparing the plan to help stimulate private sector development.
"The focus is on developing cottage and small enterprises to generate jobs and enable farmers to earn more cash income by linking farmers to skills development and markets, especially niche markets," a Bhutanese finance ministry official said seeking anonymity.
But with Bhutan opening up to the world and its citizens now rubbing shoulders with foreigners from across the world, one wonders if this 'last Shangri-La' would be able to check the temptations of greed and maintain its sacred policy of Gross National Happiness.
(Syed Zarir Husain can be contacted at [email protected])