..Press Release................................ UNESCAP News Services

Date 18 July 2007
Press Release No: L/40/2007

Welcome remarks by Mr. Kim Hak-Su, Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Secretary of UNESCAP at the International Conference: Happiness and Public Policy, 18 -19 July 2007, Bangkok

Your Excellency Mr. Paiboon Wattanasirithum, Deputy Prime Minister of Thailand

Your Excellency Lyonpo Jigmi Thinley, Minister of Home and Cultural Affairs, Royal
Government of Bhutan

Mr. Rongpon Charoenpan, Secretary-General to the Cabinet, Royal Thai Government

Dr. Sauwalak Kittiprapas, Acting Director , Public Policy Development Office, Royal Thai
Government

Excellencies, Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is my pleasure to extend a warm welcome to you all on the occasion of the International Conference on Happiness and Public Policy.

I should like to congratulate the Royal Thai Government, particularly the Public Policy Development Office, under the Office of the Prime Minister, for organizing this regional conference on happiness. UNESCAP is pleased to be closely associated with the Public Policy Development Office in the organization of this conference.

It is encouraging that the Royal Thai Government is convening this conference to facilitate the strengthening of public policy to improve the quality of life and well-being of people, as distinct from merely focusing on GDP as a measure of development. The roots of this initiative may be traced to the sufficiency economy philosophy of His Majesty the King of Thailand.

We are privileged to have with us today a distinguished representative of the country that was the first in the world to conceptualize “Gross National Happiness”. That country is the Royal Kingdom of Bhutan represented here by His Excellency Lympho Jigmi Thinley, Minister of Home and Cultural Affairs.

I am sure that the deliberations of this conference shall be enriched by insights drawn from both Thailand and Bhutan.

Excellencies,
Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

Given that two thirds of the world’s poor struggle for survival in the Asian and Pacific region, I see two key challenges for public policy:

• One, how can public policy facilitate the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (the MDGs), thereby reducing the exclusion and misery of nearly 700 million people in the region and fostering the means for them to embark on the path towards greater happiness through freedom from want and freedom from fear?
• Two, how can public policy protect better those societies in this region in the midst of a fast-forward, high-turnover, high energy-consuming and waste-generating mode of economic dynamism from losing their souls and having their ecological carrying capacity destroyed?

Excellencies,
Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

Our current “grow first, clean up later” modus operandi is already taking a heavy toll on our societies.

We need to re-focus on the quality of progress for the many, as a counterbalance to the single-minded pursuit of GDP growth and short-term profit for the few.

In this regard, UNESCAP has been promoting “Green Growth” or environmentally sustainable economic growth. This means improving the quality of growth to achieve MDG 1: Reducing poverty and hunger, and MDG 7: Promoting environmental sustainability.

The “Green Growth” approach is one means of harmonizing economic growth with the ecological efficiency and the quality of production and consumption patterns of society. “Green Growth” was endorsed by the Fifth Ministerial Conference on Environment and Development of our region as a unique policy instrument for promoting the betterment of the lives of the people of the Asian and Pacific region through five tracks:

• Green tax and budget reform;
• Development of sustainable infrastructure;
• Promotion of sustainable consumption and production;
• Greening of markets and business; and
• Development of ecological efficiency indicators.

Excellencies,
Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

I wish this conference every success.
Thank you for your attention.