According to the Center for Bhutan Studies, the aim of the fifth GNH conference was to bring together policy makers, civil society, intellectuals and academics and explore issues pertaining to development.

Happy Faces From Bhutan. Image by Flickr user laihiu and used under a creative commons license

Jigme Singye Wangchuck, the 4th King of Bhutan first coined the concept of Gross National Happiness (GNH) when he was barely in his 20’s. As King of a small and poor country, he sought the unconventional path to development by focusing on the quality and happiness of his people rather than GDP/GNP as the ultimate goal.

The first conference was held in Bhutan in 2004, the second one in Nova Scotia, Canada in 2005, the third in Thailand in 2007, and the fourth was in Bhutan in 2008.

The 4 pillars of GNH include socio-economic development, preservation of cultural values, conservation of the natural environment and establishment of good governance. And these include many indicators like psychological well being, health, education, living standards etc.

The premise of such a philosophy is more or less embedded in E. F Schumacher’s 1973 revolutionary book, “Small is Beautiful; Economics as if People Mattered,” and something he called “Buddhist Economics.”

But as the world tries to grasp onto the idea of whether GNH can work or whether it is just a fuzzy notion, Bhutan – the country where the concept first originated – has been asking whether GNH has run ahead of itself.

The debate started when the Bhutanese Prime Minister returned from the conference last week and said that GNH has spread so fast that it is being taken more seriously in places other than Bhutan, its country of origin and the country is falling behind.

The leader of the opposition in Bhutanese parliament, Tshering Tobgay, avidly retorted on his blog:

“Very good. Our government now understands what the common man has long known: namely that, to increase happiness levels, we need is less talk and more action.”

“Invisible”, a reader, commented on his post:

“I strongly disagree with our Lyonchhen and say that, “Bhutan is not lagging behind in GNH.” Bhutanese Society is GNH Society. GNH is in our “values” and in our “thinking.”

And Tangba, another reader, commented:

“The fact is GNH was there since long time back and all the civilized nations had been implementing it for centuries. The only difference is that they didn’t call it GNH as we do. They called it by other collective names: quality education, good health care, clean environment, nature and wildlife conservation, preservation of culture and traditions, strong economy, freedom of speech, corruption free administration, human rights and so on. Then why are we making a big fuss about it?”

Meanwhile Rubiks at Kuzu-Bhutan Weblog begged to differ:

Some people may ask, “why all this fuss against GNH now?” Well! I say this – it has become incredibly difficult to have a meaningful debate about anything without someone dragging the term “GNH” into it…I am tired of this cliché.

…I know I am living in a real world and not some fairy tale world. In order to measure happiness, we need to have a very clear understanding about happiness. Happiness is a state of mind, which is not constant. Philosophers have been trying to define “mind” for centuries, yet they are still left with the same fundamental question – what is mind? Happiness is a subjective entity hence to measure it objectively is just a fallacy.

“Awakened fellow”, a commenter on the above post, countered:

“Nobody says that Bhutan has achieved GNH. We all accept that there is much to strive for even to reach near GNH. But that doesn't mean that GNH is crap.

GNH is a broad idea. It is guide and inspiration - not a rule, solution or a prescription. Yes, we have many problems and we are far from GNH. But, even just having GNH as our guide, and striving for it is a big thing.”

But Unagi agreed in another post on Kuzu-Bhutan Weblog:

“GNH does not mean having a Land Cruiser and living in a comfortable Duplex and getting a degree from the U.S. BUT what is GNH is the fact that every one is happy because they have the basic NEEDS.

GNH is a mutual benefit philosophy and you should share the unhappiness of those fellow citizens who are apparently NOT happy because their children are walking for hours to get to school, because they don't have enough food to survive and they definitely cannot worry about a Land Cruiser, believe me.
GNH is beautiful, I accept that but what I'm saying is…for GNH money is essential and for GNH to be ACHIEVED, resources need to be SHARED equally among everyone. Not some owning Land Cruisers and other not even being able to afford taxis. That is when MONEY comes into play for happiness.”

Some bloggers like Sonam Tshering argued that giving GNH a formal threshold had, instead, made it worse for the commoner:

“In 2004, the Centre for Bhutan Studies for the first time organized an international conference on Operationalizing of Gross National Happiness. Subsequently, the centre organized similar international conferences in Canada, Thailand and this year is Brazil. Since then, the concept of GNH has grown beyond the comprehension of the common people.

Now the question that remains is how it can be applied in the ground realities of the common people. The concept has grown too high, most common people today feel that GNH is only for the experts and high level officials.”

The Bhutanese Prime Minister puts the onus on the individuals to make it happen:

“It [a government] must try to create the right conditions, but the individual himself and herself must pursue happiness.”

As the debate rages on, it seems – at least – that they inadvertently agreed one thing: that Bhutan needed to work on GNH at home, rather than letting international academics seek definition and run away with the idea. So far, however, Bhutan has been pretty successful in selling it. This summer the President of France Nicolas Sarkozy also wanted to measure his country’s economic progress through GNH (the proposal was later rejected). Now the challenge remains to bring the concept home to roost.

Political parties and non-governmental organisations used a number of social media tools to campaign, monitor and report on Namibia Elections 2009.

The National Society for Human Rights (NSHR) used Ushahidi to monitor the elections. Ushahidi, which means testimony in Kiswahili, was a tool created in the aftermath of disputed Kenya's elections in 2007. Ushahidi collected eyewitness reports of violence placed them on a map.

NSHR used Ushahidi to collect reports about fraud, undue influence, intimidation, violence, etc. Reports were sent in three ways: SMS, email and filling a form on the website.

Pre-election violence reported on Ushahidi:

Last Friday evening between 20hoo and 21hoo in Eveline Street in the Goreangab suburb of Windhoek, fighting started between a group of 15 Swapo party and 7 RDP supporters after the former singing ‘We are Nujoma's soldiers' removed a RDP poster from a municipal light pole. Members of the Wanaheda Police precinct rapidly intervened and no further incident occured that evening.

The African Elections Project uses new media to monitor and report on elections in African countries. The project set up a Namibia page, a blog and Twitter page to keep track of elections news and results.

From African Elections Twitter page:

This is day 3 of verification process, The Electoral Commission has received 40% of results and 30% have been verified #namibiaelections2009
about 12 hours ago from web
Retweeted by 1 person

Elections results on its blog:

Below are confirmed results of Namibia Elections 2009 (Presidential and National Assembly) from different constituncies:

Confirmed constituency result for Tsumeb, in Oshikoto:
Beukes
9
Garoeb
352
Goagose
9
Hamutenya
1131
….

Election Watch is a project of the Institute for Public Policy Research. Election Watch has a blog of live election results.

Claims of irregularities:

The RDP and several other opposition parties held a press conference on Saturday afternoon alleging a string of irregularities including indelible ink that didn't work, ballot papers that did not have the official stamp, and the ever-changing voters register (of which there is a new version with yet another figure for the number of registered voters).

The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) also used social networks such as Facebook to allow people from all over the world to express their views and opinions about Namibian elections.

The ruling party, SWAPO, has a channel on YouTube, a blog and an SMS service, which will enables members to keep in touch with the party. The number for the SMS line is 79276.

The opposition DTA of Namibia has a Youtube channel and a page of Facebook.

The main opposition party, RDP, is also on YouTube

Social media has not become popular in Namibia as in other African countries such as South Africa, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria and Tanzania. We will keep our eyes on Namibia to see the future of social media in the country.

Democratic Republic of Congo

Arkangel88 on Congoforums.net:

C'est dommage de constater qu'aujourd'hui encore, pour bien des gens, le SIDA semblerait toujours être le Syndrome Imaginaire pour Décourage les Amoureux. Les gens ne prennent toujours pas assez des précautions vis-à-vis de ce fléau.

Tunisia

Tunisian blogger zizou from Djerba, writing from South Africa, where the government has just announced a plan to expand treatment to all HIV-positive babies, talks about the discrimination the HIV-positive face back in his country:

Je suis encore en Afrique du sud. ici, une personne sur deux est infecte par le virus du sida. En Tunisie, l'infection est minime ( moins 0.01% de la population), le traitement gratuit est disponible et pourtant j'ai l'impression que nos seropositifs souffrent plus que ceux qui vivent en Afrique du Sud. Ils souffrent du rejet de leurs familles et de la societe. Ils se retrouvent souvent au chomage et sans aucun soutien… et pourtant! Le sida n'est pas la grippe. Il ne se propage que par la voie sexuelle (et encore! ce n'est pas a tous les coups). Donc chers compatriotes, en cette journee mondiale de lutte contre le sida. Ayez une pensee pour ces gens qui souffrent et surtout reflechissez a ce qu'il faut faire pour stopper l'isolement et la stigmatisation de ces malades.

Tekiano.com writes about Silence, a documentary by Tunisian filmmakers Karim Souaki, which will compete in an upcoming film festival in Marseille, France:

Le film brise le «Silence» pesant sur la société tunisienne au sujet du sida, à travers le portrait de «Jimmy», un tunisien porteur du VIH. Ce documentaire évoque la perception du sida dans notre société. Le regard du réalisateur y croise celui de quelques personnes vivant avec le VIH.

Haiti

The fight against discrimination was also evident in the Haitian town of Jacmel, where hundreds of gays and lesbians took to the streets.  On PawallaPale.com:

Ils ont à leur tête un ancien pasteur américain…qui a mis sur pied une organisation dont le but est d’aider les homosexuels (hommes et femmes) à vivre positivement tout en étant séropositifs.

Ils demandent également aux milliers d’homosexuels haïtiens de cesser toute hypocrisie. En d’autres termes, qu’ils finissent par s’afficher en tant que tel.

Guadeloupe & Martinique

And finally, in the French Antilles, discrimination was similarly at the center of many of the discussions and public awareness efforts.

Bebel971 , a blog of the UNESCO middle school, Bébel, in Sainte-Rose, Guadeloupe writes:

Vingt ans de lutte… Mais guère d’amélioration. En cette Journée mondiale de lutte contre le sida, l’heure est au bilan. La Guadeloupe demeure, cette année encore, la deuxième région de France la plus touchée par l’épidémie, avec un taux de prévalence 4 fois supérieure à celle de la Métropole.

La stigmatisation est forte en Guadeloupe. Il y a des tabous et les gens ne se font pas dépister, même s’ils désirent le faire car les attitudes discriminatoires et le rejet par la famille sont fréquents.

En terme de dépistage, la haute autorité de santé, souhaite lancer une nouvelle stratégie : le proposer à toute personne de plus de 15 ans qui vient dans un centre de santé, qu’il y ait eu risque ou non. « Si 70% des personnes séropositives étaient dépistées, elles prendraient plus de précaution et moins de risque pour leur santé, souligne docteur Marie-Thérèse Georger-Sow, présidente du Corevih (coordination régionale de lutte contre l’infection due au virus de l’immunodéficience humaine).

In an effort to fight the attitudes that help support this high infection rate, a new TV spot airing in Guadeloupe and Martinique calls for solidarity with those infected with HIV (via la discrimination dans la publicité):

In Martinique, madinina972bis on DOMActu.com writes:

C'est a ne rien comprendre ,malgré tous ces appels et ces mises en garde il y ai autant de personne atteint de cette maladie.On parle et on parle et personne n'écoute…