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.

The latest contribution by Matthias Schlögl deals with happiness indices and with selected intents to measure developments in different cultural contexts: Measuring Happiness?

The category KEF-Forum focuses on various issues of research and/for development and is work in progress. We try to keep the topics up-to-date by adding new content.

 --> Current KEF-Forum: "Happiness" - a path towards development?