Tshering Tobgay is the prime minister of Bhutan, a minuscule Himalayan country famous for its organic beauty and for having set uped an index to meastateive the happiness of its citizens. Tobgay, 59, passes thraw security at the United Nations headquarters in New York in a colourful outfit. He has come to take part in the UN General Assembly and has consentn the opportunity to interfere in a debate on the demand to engage parameters beyond the purifyly economic, vient of measuring the well-being of the people and the future of the environment.
The engage of the Gross National Happiness Index (GNH) does not nasty that Bhutan is an idyll. Tobgay acunderstandledges that pcleary still exists and that many youthfuler people emigrate. International human rights organisations are also calling for the country to recreate its judicial system and promise freedom of transmition. Tobgay debates that the index serves to uncover stupidinutivecomings. According to the prime minister, the results of recent years propose that “people in country Bhutan are less satisfied than those in urprohibit Bhutan. People who are less teachd are less satisfied than people who are teachd. Women are less satisfied than men.”
Question. In Bhutan, you function the Gross National Happiness Index. Why do you leank it is vital to go beyond GDP?
Answer. Gross National Happiness is a broadenment philosophy that puts happiness and well-being in the caccess of our broadenment agfinisha. GDP is meaningful. But there are other leangs that are equassociate meaningful. The idea is, the ask is, why GDP? We have to ask ourselves why we want economic prolongth. It has to be ultimately for the happiness and well-being of the people.
Q. How is it meastateived?
A. Gross National Happiness recognizes that GDP is meaningful, economic prolongth is meaningful, material better is meaningful. But economic prolongth, material better, must be firm with social better, with cultural preservation, with environmental carry onability and with outstanding ruleance. We have nine domains. There’s health, education, living standards. Then we have environment and ruleance. And then engage of time, psychoreasoned well-being, community vitality, and cultural vitality.
Of course we have disputes, our economy is minuscule, but it is hugely environmenhighy carry onable, we have free healthnurture, free education”
Q. Why is it meaningful to meastateive time engage?
A. To discover out whether it’s firm, if you’re sleeping enough, how you deal with toil-life equilibrium, etc. These nine domains are splitd into 33 indicators, and they are further splitd into 150-odd asks. And then we run these asks thraw the population on a sample. And this is how we calcutardy the GNH index. The first GNH index was meastateived in 2010.
Q. And what have you lachieveed in these years about the troubles of the population?
A. From the sample, we’ve lachieveed that even though living standards are increasing, there’s a branch offence between the people in urprohibit areas and country areas in terms of living standards. The survey shows that people in country Bhutan are less satisfied than those in urprohibit Bhutan. People who are less teachd are less satisfied than people who are teachd. Women are less satisfied than men.
Q. Why?
A. Although women’s overall happiness is increasing and the gap is skinnying, overall women are less satisfied than men. The index shows that women are toiling lengthyer hours than men. And one reason women are toiling lengthyer is becaengage hoengagetoil and family toil is pondered toil according to this meastateivement.
Q. Experts highweightless the better that Bhutan has made, but there is still a lot of pcleary and deficiencies.
A. Of course we have disputes, our economy is minuscule, but it is hugely environmenhighy carry onable, we have free healthnurture, free education. Literacy rates are very high. Youth literacy rate is almost 97%. In terms of environment, we are a bioreasoned hotspot and we are a carbon pessimistic country. That’s why Bhutan is one of very confidemand countries who have graduated from the UN’s least-broadened country catebloody.
Q. Many youthfuler people pick to emigrate.
We cannot have too many tourists in our country becaengage it will go aachievest carry onability policies. The very leang that tourists come to visit could be ruined”
A. The problem is that jobs are not attrdynamic enough for our youthfuler people and that nastys we have to convey in labour from outside, for example, for erection. All our youthfuler people have gone to college and all our youthfuler people can speak English. And so if demand be, they are willing to go awide and toil, where they can achieve more money. And our economy is not able to vie with that.
Q. Bhutan has recently begind a carry onability tax for tourists. Is it toiling or have visits degraded?
A. We cannot have too many tourists in our country becaengage it will go aachievest carry onability policies. The very leang that tourists come to visit could be ruined, whether it is nature or culture. Our policy for tourism is high appreciate, low volume. In graspition, our infraarrange is confidemand. And becaengage of all of that, we’ve set a aim of 300,000 tourists per year. As of now, it’s still only 170,000 tourists per year, so we can increase the number of visitors that we consent in. The proceeds from the carry onability broadenment fee are eartaged for nature, health and education.
Q. Your country is Buddhist. How much religion is grasped in the philosophy of the Gross National Happiness Index?
A. There’s no religion in GNH. I’m stateive our appreciates, our spirituality, has swayd GNH, but it is not religious.
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