Source: A. O.

The Buddhist kingdom at the foot of the Himalayas, which for a long time has been isolated and glorified as Shangri La by the "West" - is the only country, that defines "development" less through economic issues than through the noble concept of "Gross National Happiness" which wants to achieve universal contentedness of all the people living in the "land of the thunder dragon", by promoting cultural and religious values. Investments towards basic needs are seen as a necessity to free oneself from materialistic thinking.
This unique path of development has among other things led to the fact, that life-expectancy has increased about 30 years, only within one generation, meaning that Bhutan has already left the list of the least developed countries and that royal absolutism has been transformed into a constitutional monarchy, which resulted in the first national election being held in spring last year.

The current KEF-Forum discusses the interconnections between the concept of "Gross National Happiness" and the national development in the kingdom, particularly within the last decade.

Source: A. O.

Socio-economic and Socio-cultural Impact of Rural Electrification in Four Districts of the Kingdom

KEF-coordinator Andreas Obrecht reports on the results of an empirical research under his guidance between 2002 and 2007 and describes the social, cultural and economic impacts of electrification in four rural districts of the kingdom.

Source: Andreas J. Obrecht (Ed.): Soft Transformation in the Kingdom of Bhutan. Socio-cultural and Technological Perspectives. Böhlau Verlag Wien, Köln, Weimar 2010

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Only available in German.

Bhutans sanfte Transformation

Walther Moser im Gespräch mit Stefan Priesner

The societal and political transformation processes are described and analysed in an interview with Stefan Priesner, who has not only lived in Bhutan for many years by working for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) but has also played a major role in the global dissemination of the "Gross National Happiness"-concept and the following discussion about the "third development path".

Source: Dieses Interview ist mit freundlicher Genehmigung des Verlages folgendem neu erschienen Buch entnommen : Andreas J. Obrecht (Hg.): Sanfte Transformation im Königreich Bhutan. Sozio-kulturelle und technologische Perspektiven. Soft Transformation in the Kingdom of Bhutan. Socio-cultural and Technological Perspectives. Böhlau Verlag Wien, Köln, Weimar 2010, S. 201 - 219

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Measuring Happiness?

This article by Matthias Schlögl deals with happiness indices and with selected intents to measure developments in different cultural contexts. 

"Since then a lot of new instruments, mainly indices, for measuring the forthcoming of mankind have been developed and one country put the "Gross National Happiness" as the main goal into its constitution - Bhutan."

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This KEF-Forum is work in progress and will be updated. 

These articles are waiting in the pipeline:
A KEF-Fact Sheet from Ugyen and Ulrike Cokl refers to the “Education System in Bhutan and the Austro-Bhutanese Development and Research Co-operation”.
Audiostream: Bhutan - Im Land des Donnerdrachen. A radio broadcast.
Interesting and inspiring Weblinks.