The value of a tree

How do we know whether a country is on the right path of development? Most countries rely on the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as an indicator. But does this really work? Is GDP the right tool to use? The East Asian country of Bhutan does not think so. Bhutan developed its own indicator to measure the country’s development: Gross National Happiness (GNH) – a concept, Bhutan presented at the Rio+20 summit in Rio de Janeiro. But how does GNH work? That’s what we asked Karma Tshiteem, secretary of the Gross National Happiness Commission of Bhutan.