Reflection on methodological challenges .1 The setting

National and international conferences on GNH have emphasised the need for its operationalisation by way of practical indicators and the development of practical policies. Also outside Bhutan, a wide range of concepts and tools have been developed to support decision-making regarding improvement of well-being or sustainable development of societies (Caspari 2004). Recently, the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) developed a framework for Sustainability Assessment of Food and Agriculture Systems (SAFA), with large similarity with

GNH (FAO 2014). SAFA characterises food and agricultural systems by four dimensions of sustainability: good governance, environmental integrity, economic resilience and social well-being. So, far before the development of SAFA, the GNH concept already identified governance as an important aspect of sustainable development, in addition to the currently well-acknowledged pillars of sustainability: the domain of people, planet, and profit. In Chapter 2, I argue that governance should be the foundation for the three pillars of GNH, since good governance is vital to actually improve well-being of people.

Furthermore, both SAFA and Bhutan’s GNH index use indicators to measure progress of issues in the domain of people, planet and profit. SAFA determines 116 indicators and aggregates them to 21 indicators, which are presented in a polygon. The GNH index uses 33 indicators and aggregates them in nine domains and combines these in one index. The present study complements the GNH index methodology, by including issues relevant for smallholder farmers.

It uses a combination of an empirical and integral assessment with separate indices for societal, economic and environmental issues. It is hoped that the proposed procedures and criteria elucidated will provide a basis for GNH assessment at the smallholder farm level, and subsequent dissemination. Figure 1 gives a schematic presentation of the integral GNH assessment at farm level.

Key aspects in this methodology are: (1) participatory stakeholder meetings to

Figure 1. Schematic presentation of the empirical and integral assessment of GNH development progress at farm level

identify GNH issues; (2) identification of indicators; (3) quantifying the GNH indicators and (4) computation of an integrated assessment.

6.2.2 Operationalisation of the methodology Key points for future implementation

It is generally acknowledged that in order to assess development at farm level, we need a participatory approach to include opinions and perceptions of all relevant stakeholders, in particular the farmers (Zhen and Routray 2003;

Mollenhorst 2005). Our participatory workshops enabled us to structure views on real life problems (issues) of the farmers, including causes and consequences of these problems in a relatively short space of time (Chapter 2). The national level workshop, with the participation of a multidisciplinary expert group, was useful to understand national level issues, which had relevance for the rural areas. This expert group consisted of 20 persons: a livestock production specialist, a social scientist, a veterinarian, a policy and planning officer, three district officers (i.e. one for livestock, agriculture and forestry) from each of the four study areas, and a farmer representing each study area. From the discussions in this national workshop, we learned to include more farmers’

representatives, more officials at the regional level, and experts in the field of economy or environment. This would have been useful, as the discussions were dominated by policy makers and technical experts. If the expert group would have, for example, also consisted of an environmentalist or an economist, other issues could have been tabled, such as the impact of cattle husbandry on climate change, biodiversity, and trade and marketing issues.

Once relevant issues are selected, we need to identify an indicator for each issue, a(n aggregated) parameter that measures the state of that issue. The various technical, economic and environmental indicators analysed in Chapters 3 and 4, and the CBS GNH indicators were evaluated by the expert group for their relevance in the integral assessment, considering generally used criteria for indicator selection, such as relevance, simplicity, validity and the availability of performance/target values (Bell and Morse, 2003).

Collection of appropriate data based on the identified critical issues is crucial for final selection of indicators, and hence the operationalisation of this methodology. Obtaining data for the quantitative indicators was not a major problem. Each of the 205 geogs in Bhutan has a livestock, agriculture and forestry extension officer. These extension officers were used as enumerators, since they have experience in collecting data from the field. Also in future,

extension officers can be used for data collection. They are in close contact with the farmers.

One of the challenges was the subjectivity around the qualitative indicators used for the issues household living standards, livestock CPR grazing practices and soil erosion on sloping crop land (Chapter 5). Kemp and Martens (2007) argue that subjectivity in quantifying qualitative indicators is unavoidable, and must be managed rather than eliminated. Subjectivity in the present qualitative indicators was managed by transposing them into quantitative ordinal data, by scoring them between 1 (bad) to 5 (good) (Chapter 5, Table 3). We were unable to include a qualitative indicator for incidence of wildlife conflicts, which was mentioned to be relevant during the field workshops. This indicator could not be selected because of the varied views of the farmers and expert group and lack of reliable information.

The progress in societal, economic and environmental indicators was assessed by establishing performance value ranges for five sectors on a scale of 1-100 (bad, poor, medium, ok and good) of each identified indicator (Chapter 5, Table 3). There is a need to draw up more reliable performance value ranges for the identified indicators. This can be achieved by the government encouraging more studies at farm level, followed by consultative meetings and publishing a compendium of the agreed performance value ranges.

To monitor progress in the selected indicators, we conducted surveys in 2000, 2004 and 2015, in four different locations. Performing surveys along such a long time frame, however, has it challenges, such as identifying the same households and farmers. Future studies, moreover, could be done in a five-year time frame, which coincides with the five year planning process of the government.

Institutional implementation

One of the challenges of the use of the GNH concept is its policy relevance, i.e. a close and practical link to policy recommendations or measures which are credible for key stakeholders (Hilden and Rosenstrom 2008). Concerted efforts will be made to create awareness amongst policy makers and other stakeholders in Bhutan to disseminate the outputs of the present study. The outcomes of this thesis will be presented to policy makers and researchers under the Ministry of Agriculture and Forests (MoAF) of Bhutan, which is a mandatory requirement especially after completion of post graduate studies

(RCSC 2012). Progressive awareness creation of the study outputs will also be done through periodic meetings with extension workers and farmers.

To pursue the pragmatic implementation of GNH development progress in rural areas, MoAF should take a catalytic role as they have the mandate of policy interventions, and research and extension development for the largely rural population. MoAF’s Department of Livestock (DoL) conducts already an annual census on livestock population and livestock production (by the livestock extension workers); the census questionnaires could be further elaborated, including other relevant GNH indicators. Researchers in DoL and other researchers under the MoAF can convey the overall assessment to the policy makers of the MoAF. MoAF can include the implementation in the five year planning process in Bhutan. The 12^th five year plan begins in July 2018.

Political commitment has already been made to enhance the smallholder dairy sector through crossbreeding during the coming five year plan period, since cattle are the most important livestock for farmer’s livelihoods as they provide a regular and reliable income compared to the traditional once-a-year return from crop production. Hence, a critical assessment of the crossbreeding practices is required.