The Fifth World Happiness Report 2017 was released on March 20 by the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) .
Malaysia was placed 42nd in this World Happiness Index out of a total of 155 countries.
This is not a good ranking and we could have fared much better, with some adjustments to our policies.
The director of SDSN is Professor Jeffrey Sachs, who is also the head of the Jeffrey Sachs Centre on Sustainable Development, that is financed by a US$10.0 million grant by the not-for-profit Jeffrey Cheah Foundation and housed at the Sunway University in Malaysia - and is well known to Malaysians.
Professor Jeffrey Sachs has recommended all nations to follow the United Arab Emirates example, to appoint a happiness minister.
Now with our low ranking, will it help us? Do we need a happiness minister?
Since happiness is what we all seek in life, then why not give it more priority that it deserves in formulating our policies and practices to improve our well-being and quality of life and for more happiness?
What is the use of pursuing economic growth per se, if the majority of our people are not happy enough? Of course we can appoint the prime minister as our new happiness minister as well. But we need more comprehensive and focused policies that are evolved and properly implemented, to ensure that the poor rakyat are happier and not mainly benefit the rich and powerful, with more happiness.
Hence, I would agree that Malaysia should appoint a happiness minister. To start with and to explore all possibilities, we can have a new national unity minister - and happiness. Then we can develop the art of providing happiness and graduate to a full Happiness Ministry when we are more prepared?
In the meantime the National Unity, Finance Ministries or the Economic Planning Unit, could establish a Happiness Monitoring Centre, to oversee the introduction and implementation of pro-happiness policies and measures nationwide. Ministries that promote measures that cause public unhappiness could be penalised by cutting their budget allocations. After all why do we want to use taxpayers’ money to perpetuate unhappiness?
Six happiness factors
Happiness is caused by six factors according to Prof Jeffrey Sachs as follows -
Income per capita, healthy life expectancy, freedoms, generosity, social support and absence of corruption.
We can understand why we scored poorly in the Happiness Index as follows.
1. For instance our incomes are low and with inflation rising and wages being slos to rise, with low productivity, happiness has declined all round.
Here the education system must be revamped to churn out more high-skilled graduates who have been scoring poorly on the Education Quality Indices, like the international ratings by Pisa and QS.
2. Our Health Life Expectancy has improved considerably and is not a serious drawback.
3. Our fundamental freedoms could have brought us down and this crucial matter should be carefully studied by our government agencies. Our press freedom, freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, human rights, etc would have given us low scores.
4. Generosity would have been reasonably high with our protective policies, Bantuan Rakyat 1Malaysia (BR1M) and rising safety nets.
5. Similarly, for our state and stage of development social support would have been fair, with better health facilities, minimum wages, etc.
6. Corruption, however, and its worsening situation, could have pulled us down on the Happiness Index. Unless we take more drastic action to arrest the rising corruption according to the Transparency International Corruption Perception Index - we will become more unhappy as a nation and people.
How can Malaysia be happier?
We need to take the UN-sponsored Happiness Index more seriously.
We could compare and relate our own Malaysian Well-being Index to the UN Happiness Report Index for compatibility and enhancement of both Happiness Indices.
Prof Jeffrey Sachs’ recommendation to appoint a happiness minister could be adopted at some stage soon.
The Jeffrey Sachs Centre for Sustainability in Malaysia could work more closely with the Economic Planning Unite (EPU) and government agencies, to see how our happiness ranking of only 42nd place in the Happiness Report could be raised to a much higher ranking.
There should be much more discussion among government officials and NGOs and the Jeffrey Sachs Centre and academia on how to improve our Happiness Index.
Finally the high emphasis on economic growth, should be gradually shifted to providing more happiness to Malaysians, as higher incomes alone will not give us happiness. Happiness is all encompassing, as man shall not live by bread alone.
So let’s pursue more happiness for our people.
And yes, we need a happiness minister soon, maybe in the next cabinet?
RAMON NAVARATNAM is chairperson of Asli/Centre for Public Policy Studies.
