2
2.1
CGrowth,
h a pDevelopment
t e r and Happiness
Growth,
Development
anD happiness
Since 1971, Bhutan 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 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. In 2011, 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.*
In This Chapter...
Introduction Economic Development
Progress Happiness
Economic Growth Insights into Human Behaviour
* As Annie Kelly writes in The Guardian, Washington, DC, 1st December. 2012.