HISTORY OF THE GDP AND "BEYOND
GDP"APPROACH.
Gross Domestic Product has long been recognised to be a poor and deficient measure of national development. Not least because costs associated with cleaning up oil-spills or tackling cancer due to cigarette smoking, for example, push up GDP when in reality they’re having a negative effect on our individual and collective well-being.
Recognising this phenomenon and that the true purpose of life is to be happy, in 1972 the Fourth King of Bhutan coined the term “Gross National Happiness”. GNH is a philosophy that guides the development of Bhutan, a small landlocked Himalayan country home to around 700,000 people.
In 2011, the United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution 69/309, “Happiness: towards a holistic approach to development”, urging member nations to follow the example of Bhutan and measure happiness and well-being. The Resolution calls for happiness to be a "fundamental human goal.”
In April 2012 at the UN in New York, to encourage the spread of Bhutan’s GNH philosophy, Bhutan's Prime Minister Jigme Thinley and Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon convened a “High Level Meeting on Happiness and Well-being: Defining a New Economic Paradigm”. At this meeting the first World Happiness Report was released and soon afterwards the 20th of March was declared by the UN to be the International Day of Happiness.
Planet Happiness Co-Founders, Paul Rogers and Laura Musikanski, were invited participants of the April 2012 UN meeting. Since this meeting many countries, communities and individuals around the world have been advancing the GNH and Beyond GDP agenda. This interest is expressed in a multitude of ways including, for example, the films Affluenza, The Happy Film, The Happy Movie and The Economics of Happiness as well as multiple books and publications on the topics of Happiness and Well-being.
Planet Happiness encourages and inspires global interest in the Happiness Movement, especially among travellers, host communities and the millions of MSMEs that increasingly depend upon travel and tourism. We believe this work will help us all move Beyond GDP towards solutions that address local and global development challenges.
Recognising this phenomenon and that the true purpose of life is to be happy, in 1972 the Fourth King of Bhutan coined the term “Gross National Happiness”. GNH is a philosophy that guides the development of Bhutan, a small landlocked Himalayan country home to around 700,000 people.
In 2011, the United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution 69/309, “Happiness: towards a holistic approach to development”, urging member nations to follow the example of Bhutan and measure happiness and well-being. The Resolution calls for happiness to be a "fundamental human goal.”
In April 2012 at the UN in New York, to encourage the spread of Bhutan’s GNH philosophy, Bhutan's Prime Minister Jigme Thinley and Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon convened a “High Level Meeting on Happiness and Well-being: Defining a New Economic Paradigm”. At this meeting the first World Happiness Report was released and soon afterwards the 20th of March was declared by the UN to be the International Day of Happiness.
Planet Happiness Co-Founders, Paul Rogers and Laura Musikanski, were invited participants of the April 2012 UN meeting. Since this meeting many countries, communities and individuals around the world have been advancing the GNH and Beyond GDP agenda. This interest is expressed in a multitude of ways including, for example, the films Affluenza, The Happy Film, The Happy Movie and The Economics of Happiness as well as multiple books and publications on the topics of Happiness and Well-being.
Planet Happiness encourages and inspires global interest in the Happiness Movement, especially among travellers, host communities and the millions of MSMEs that increasingly depend upon travel and tourism. We believe this work will help us all move Beyond GDP towards solutions that address local and global development challenges.
