The First World Happiness Report
The first ever World Happiness Report has been published ahead of the UN’s High Level Meeting on Happiness and Wellbeing. The report features a detailed case study of Bhutan’s landmark Gross National Happiness Index including background to the concept of GNH, its grounding in Bhutanese culture and history, and how the concept is being operationalized in the form of the GNH Index in some novel and innovative ways.
(image) Authored by Karma Ura, President of the Centre for Bhutan Studies, Sabina Alkire, Director of the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative and Tshoki Zangmo, Centre for Bhutan Studies, the case study presents the nine domains of the GNH Index, the results from the 2010 survey, analysis of who is happy, along with a focus on how to increase happiness, and an overview of the policy framework surrounding the GNH Index.
The report, published by the Earth Institute, Columbia University, reflects a new worldwide demand for more attention to happiness and absence of misery as criteria for government policy. It reviews the state of happiness in the world today and shows how the new science of happiness explains personal and national variations in happiness.