For several years, more and more local political parties had begun to mention this notion of "measurable happiness" in their speeches and various political programs.
Like any public policy, it took a good ten years to see concrete and coercive measures take shape in the local legal arsenal. But now it's done! The assembly adopted Thursday the bill integrating "happiness" in the definition of public policies, the criteria of public contracts and, more generally, in the economic indicators on the state of the country.
Does this provision therefore make happiness mandatory? Of course not! Under this somewhat simplistic marketing name, it is above all a question of going out of the economic and financial whole and of considering local development as a much more complex element than the search for profits or investments.
Indeed, from now on, each public decision will have to include, in its criteria of decision and evaluation, a new set of selection criteria. It's been twenty years now that the environment has entered the decision-making elements of public policy so this element is nothing new!
What changes, however, are the socio-cultural criteria and how they will be measured:
Cultural impregnation and respect for the traditional pedestal,Positive apprehension by the local population,Project capacity to develop local well-being,Commitments and ability to generate jobs and entrepreneurship long-term and quality,Impact of technical and industrial processes on public health,Project's ability to generate pedagogical and educational approaches for local schools.
It is through the data generated by the social networks as well as impact studies carried out, published and commented on the administrative platform of the government, that a measurement algorithm will be applied on each criterion.
Far from the heaviness of the public utility surveys of the years 1990 and 2000 where it was necessary to reunite the population in different places, to record grievances rarely used in the end, the algorithms set up will analyze in real time the ideas and comments from the population concerned.
Following this impact studies carried out by independent bodies mandated by the government to establish the elements specific to each criteria will be posted on social medias. This being done, the public will be able to consult them and vote according to the elements they prefer, in order to finalize the project not only with the project leader but with all the local actors concerned.
For the specific case of the cultural criterion, institutions representing culture and traditions will be consulted specifically to ensure their support for the project and hear their proposals to ensure respect for the local culture by the project concerned.
Business representatives tried to change the elements of social network analysis, arguing that published comments did not necessarily reflect the actual views of the people. But the government said that the algorithms put in place were those already used in other countries for a decade or so and that they had proven themselves on much larger communities.
A measured happiness in Tahiti, it's tomorrow!