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Is money the key to happiness, asks UN official in Dubai

Dubai - The event took place ahead of the three-day World Government Summit in Dubai.

Participants and experts at the inaugural Global Dialogue for Happiness (GDH) in Dubai on Saturday were urged to turn the forum into a global movement for happiness. 
Speaking at the event, taking place ahead of the three-day World Government Summit (WGS) which starts on Sunday, Ohood Al Roumi, the UAE Minister of State for Happiness, said: "The role of governments is to create the right conditions to give people the opportunity to be happy." 
"At this meeting (GDH), we are talking about the well-being of humanity. We are having a dialogue that will start a journey towards the happiness of seven billion people around the world. Let us turn this dialogue into a global movement for happiness," Al Roumi underlined. 
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The world's first Happiness Minister cited studies mentioning that there are around 350 million people in the world who are suffering from depression and thousands committing suicide every year. 
"This situation gets worse because of conflicts and crisis, which in 2015 has cost around $14T. Today, around 20 per cent of the world's population live in vulnerable conditions," Al Roumi enumerated. 
A vital challenge for governments, Al Roumi noted, is to strike a balance between economic growth and people's overall well being. 
"Governments should improve the living conditions of its people. If kids are well-educated; if there are good hospitals; people have jobs and they feel safe and secure; and government services make people feel hopeful- (then) these are the enabling conditions and environment that will make people live a happy life," added Al Roumi, who is also the deputy chairman of the WGS organising committee. 
Speaking at the same forum, Helen Clark, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) director, noted: "A recent study, which pooled findings across surveys in a mix of high, middle and low income countries, reported that 18 per cent of adults - almost one in five - experienced a mental disorder within the previous year." 
"The metric suggests that the global burden of disease from mental and behavioral disorders is rising. Depression alone is now the second leading contributor globally to the number of years lived with disability," Clark added. 
Clark challenged governments to look into human happiness "as a way of broadening the conversation about human progress and wellbeing." 
"While income is a crucial contributor to well-being, it is far from being everything. As the old saying goes, we do not live by bread alone. UNDP's vision is for development which enables all people to live longer and healthier lives, be educated, have access to a decent standard of living, and have the freedom to choose to live lives which they value. This approach balances the material and non-material aspects of wellbeing," Clark stressed. 
Clark, who also served as the 37th prime minister of New Zealand, cited the experiences of her own country. 
"Our per capita gross national income in 2014 was the 32nd largest in the world, but on the Human Development Index, New Zealand is ranked ninth. While its GDP per capita is at the lower end of the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) league tables, New Zealand scores highly on life expectancy at birth (14th highest in the world), and on expected years of schooling (2nd highest in the world)," Clarke said.
Clark also noted that countries which scored high on the Human Development Index (HDI) typically had higher average life satisfaction while those who scored lower on the HDI had lower average life satisfaction. 
To this end, Clark challenged governments to pay more attention to happiness as an important component "to achieve human and sustainable development." 
Clark, meanwhile, praised the pioneering work of countries like the UAE as the first nation to have a Minister for Happiness which will inspire others to focus on the levels of happiness expressed by their citizens. 
angel@khaleejtimes.com