Dubai Aims To Be The Happiest And Smartest City In The World

Dubai, believes so strongly in the importance of happiness, it now aims to be the happiest and smartest city in the world and they’ve appointed Her Excellency Ohood Al Roumi, Minister of the State for Happiness and Wellbeing, to help meet their goals of staying ten years ahead of every other city on the globe. The fact that one of the richest cities in the world has appointed a special department dedicated to happiness and has appointed a woman during a time of crisis in the Middle East, is completely revolutionary.

The fact that government leaders are considering happiness an essential component of future world growth and prosperity represents a monumental shift in how companies and leaders value development.

The World Happiness Report has demonstrated that a country’s ranking on happiness depends on six key conditions: economic prosperity, including decent work for all who want it; the physical and mental health of the citizens; freedom of individuals to make key life decisions; strong and vibrant social support networks (social capital); shared public values of generosity; and social trust, including confidence in the honesty of business and government.” It’s no surprise that people in Scandinavia, where these practices have been put in place at the government level, are considered the happiest in the world.

Recent developments in psychiatry and innovations in data and social analysis have made the factors of human happiness quantifiable, and that is what has opened the door to governments considering the economic value of well-being. 

“This change in policy perspective has been decades in the making, built on a growing dissatisfaction with using GDP per capita as a sufficient measure of human progress, and inspired by the Bhutanese choice more than 40 years ago to make happiness a national objective, and fueled by decades of research aimed at creating a trans-disciplinary science of happiness.”

To view the full article visit the website: Forbes