A friend of mine sent me this link to A Vision of Bhutan in the Year 2020.

“Before you read,” he told me, “please just switch the word ‘Bhutan’ with ‘Hawaii County’ and ‘Hydro’ to ‘Geothermal.’ Then you may find this to be an ideal Vision 2020 for Hawaii County as well.”

It turns out that Bhutan sells hydro electricity to India, and so it has a strong basis for further GDP growth. Bhutan is a small developing country with aspirations to exist in the modern world while keeping the essence of who they are.

Another thing that struck me about this new democracy is the importance it places on Gross National Happiness (GNH), which it considers more important that its Gross Domestic Product. The country actually quantifies this concept so they can measure progress.

Click to watch a BBS video titled Bhutan in Pursuit of Gross National Happiness.

Coincidentally, there was an article in Friday’s Hawaii Tribune-Herald titled “Study – Living in Hawaii may make you a happier person.” Hawaii was rated second in the nation for happiness.

The happiness ratings were based on a survey of 1.3 million people across the country by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Economists Andrew J. Oswald of the University of Warwick, England, and Stephen Wu of Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y. compared the happiness ranking with studies ranking states on various criteria. Their report was published in the journal Science and found that the happiest people tend to live in the states that do well in quality-of-life issues.

Back to Bhutan:

While much recognition has been accorded to Gross National Happiness (GNH) there has also been much criticism, and most of which is directed on the difficulty of measuring GNH in quantitative terms. Bhutan’s determination to develop the GNH vision in concrete terms took a big step forward with the preliminary findings of rare GNH indicators.

The Centre for Bhutan Studies [CBS] had identified nine provisional GNH indicators that were used in the pilot survey to measure GNH in Bhutan. To avoid an isolated implementation of the study, and to arrive at a realistic measurement of GNH, the CBS had done extensive researching and assimilated lessons from “like-minded” organizations from as far as Canada and the UK.

The 9 provisional indicators which were used in the survey:

1.    Standard of living
2.    Health of the population
3.    Education
4.    Ecosystem vitality and diversity
5.    Cultural vitality and diversity
6.    Time use and balance
7.    Good governance
8.    Community vitality, and
9.    Emotional well being

I shared this link with my friend Jim, and he said: “My niece lives in Bhutan. I have always felt that the GNH should replace our GDP for us to live a more sustainable life.”

Leslie said, “I’ve always loved the Gross National Happiness goal in Bhutan.”

Where have I been?