Bhutan, the tiny kingdom that introduced Gross National Happiness to the world, has a problem: young people are leaving the country in record numbers.

The country has free healthcare, free education, rising life expectancy and an economy that has grown over the past thirty years – yet people are leaving.

Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay believes that ironically, it is the Gross National Happiness success that has made young Bhutanese so sought after abroad.

“It’s an existential crisis,” he said.

Keeping the outside world at a distance

Bhutanwhich is about the size of Maryland, was largely isolated from the rest of the world for centuries. The kingdom was so protective of its unique Buddhist culture that it did not allow foreign tourists to visit the country until the 1970s and did not introduce television until 1999.

Buddhism is the national religion of the country. Bhutanese, especially older men and women, spend hours spinning prayer wheels full of Buddhist scriptures. Prayer flags flutter on hills and in forests, turning nature itself into a sanctuary.

Bhutan’s capital Thimpu still has no traffic lights. The country’s roads are shared by cars and cows.

Dasho Kinley Dorji, who ran Bhutan’s first newspaper before becoming the government’s information and communications minister, describes the population as nervous, surrounded by India and China, and without military or economic power.

“Bhutan’s strength would be our identity, to be different from everyone around us,” he said.

Bhutanese people wear different clothes and build buildings in a traditional architectural style. The culture is still strong today.

“We came to realize that what we had in the past, which is old, is actually very valuable,” Dorji said.

Bhutan was and today is largely a self-sufficient agricultural society. Many families still live in multi-generational farms.

The country was united by the man who became the first king in 1907. His sons and grandsons – known in Bhutan as the second, third, fourth and today fifth king – have ruled ever since.

Bhutan’s unique path to modernity

It was Bhutan’s fourth king who, as a young, newly crowned ruler in the 1970s, set Bhutan on the path to modernity. Jigme Singye Wangchuck, on his way home from a non-aligned summit in Cuba, landed at an airport in India, where reporters asked him what Bhutan’s gross national product was.

“And the king said, ‘Actually, gross national happiness in Bhutan is much more important to us than gross national product,’” Dorji said.

The phrase stuck and attracted international attention. Maximizing Gross National Happiness became a primary responsibility of the government of Bhutan, today led by Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay.

“Gross National Happiness recognizes that economic growth is important, but that growth must be sustainable. It must be balanced by preserving our unique culture,” Tobgay said. “People are important. Our happiness and well-being are important. Everything should serve that purpose.”

Every five years, surveyors travel across Bhutan to measure the country’s happiness. The results are analyzed and included in government policy.

“Gross National Happiness does not directly equate to happiness right now. One happiness is fleeting, it is emotion, it is joy,” Tobgay said.

The other – the kind Bhutan is focused on, Tobgay said – is contentment, being happy with life and oneself.

It’s also about nature. By law, at least 60% of the land must remain under forest cover. And because most of its energy comes from hydropower, Bhutan was the first and remains one of the few countries in the world to be carbon negative.

It earns foreign revenues by selling excess hydropower to India and to tourism, but there are limits. The country is full of beautiful mountains, but climbing mountain peaks is not allowed.

“For a Bhutanese, it’s very easy to understand: you know, the mountains are sacred,” Dorji said.

The school is taught in English and is free, as is healthcare.

And although the country has a king, Bhutan is also a democracy.

Introducing Bhutan to democracy

A quarter of a century after the introduction of Gross National Happiness, the fourth king decided that the best thing for his country would be an elected parliament and a prime minister.

“(It’s) the only country where democracy was introduced at a time of peace and stability, when democracy was literally a gift, imposed on the people, and not just a gift because the people did not want it,” Tobgay said.

As a reporter, Dorji covered the king’s travels around Bhutan, holding meetings called consultations to discuss the idea with his subjects. Dorji remembers people begging the king not to institute democracy.

“Because when they looked around the world, their horizon was India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan: democracy,” Dorji said. “Which is actually synonymous with violence, with corruption. So they said, ‘No, thank you. We don’t really need that. We’re doing well.'”

The king was unswayed by their arguments, and in response argued that a leader chosen by birth and not by merit could one day lead the country to disaster. He then abdicated at the age of 51 and passed the crown to his 26-year-old son, the fifth and current king. In 2008, Bhutanese went to the polls for the first time.

Today the fifth king is 44 years old. He is adored in the country and works closely with the Prime Minister.

So why are young Bhutanese leaving the country in record numbers?

Bhutan is currently facing what is known in the country as a refugee crisis. The COVID-19 pandemic has hit Bhutan’s economy hard and brought tourism to a standstill. The recovery was slow.

Many Bhutanese, with their excellent English, found better-paying jobs in Australia and even did menial work. News of the possibilities is spreading quickly on social media and now a devastating 9% of the country’s population, most of them young people, have left.

“This is a very difficult situation for Bhutan,” Tobgay said.

Attracting people back with a City of Mindfulness

Bhutan’s government has mobilized and the king has launched a bold, high-stakes plan to lure the people back. Prime Minister Tobgay is trying to attract more business people and tourists to Bhutan, highlighting landmarks such as a centuries-old suspension bridge, part of a centuries-old 400-kilometer path from one end of the country to the other that is now open to trekking tourists.

But tourism can only do so much and the King of Bhutan knows that, so he has decided to create a new city in southern Bhutan, with different rules than the rest of the country. It will be an attempt at a new model of robust economic development while still staying true to Bhutanese values.

The king calls it the Gelephu Mindfulness City.

He turned to the Danish architect Bjarke Ingels to design it. The new city will have neighborhoods located between the many rivers in the area, connected by a series of special bridges. The bridges will also function as public buildings, with one housing a Buddhist center, another for health care facilities and yet another for a university. There will be no skyscrapers and everything will be built with local materials.

Currently, the area – located in the lowlands of Bhutan – is largely undeveloped. Dr. Lotay Tshering, a former prime minister tapped by the king to lead the new city, said the city would be built in phases over the next 20 years, without allowing polluting industries.

The area is also home to plenty of wildlife, including elephants. The new city will have wildlife corridors to protect the animals.

The king has said that the success of the project will determine Bhutan’s future.

“When we say we follow the principles of Gross National Happiness, we don’t mean that we are happy with less… We also want to be rich. We also want to be technologically advanced,” said Dr. Tshering. “We want Bhutanese companies and multi-million dollar multinationals to lead.”

A Bhutanese team is working with experts around the world to find investors to help build the city, the cost of which is likely to run into billions. The city will have its own legal framework, modeled on Singapore, and will run on clean hydropower, hoping to attract technology companies, especially AI.

Deciding to stay

Ingels presented his plans to the king, and the king then presented them to the nation last December.

Namgay Zam, a journalist who hosted Bhutan’s nightly news, was present. She was planning a move to Australia with her family when she went to hear the King in a packed stadium that day.

‘He did what no king had done before. He asked the people to help him directly. And he said, ‘Will you help me?’ And there was a shocked silence,” Zam said. “Even for me, I froze. And I thought, ‘Did he just ask us to help him?’ And then he said for the second time: ‘Will you help me?’

For Zam it was a yes.

“I came home and told my husband, ‘We can’t leave,’” Zam said. “And he said, ‘Why?’ And I said, ‘I have signed a social contract with His Majesty, because I said yes.'”

Zam and her husband did not go to Australia, but the king and his family did. He visited the country last month to deliver his vision for the new Gelephu Mindfulness City and Bhutan’s future to packed stadiums of more than 20,000 Bhutanese now living in Australia, all in the hope of one day luring them back home.

“If we succeed, we can show that you can create a city that does not displace nature, that is anchored and rooted in local heritage and culture, and that still enables growth and prosperity,” Ingels said. “That’s a struggle that many places around the world are struggling with.”