Thailand ready for big summit (1)

Thailand ready for big summit (1)

By Vitit Muntarbhorn

This is the first of a two-part articles on social development
issues in Thailand.

BANGKOK: One of the key international events of 1995 will be
the World Summit on Social Development due to take place in
Copenhagen in March. It will focus on three themes, namely
poverty alleviation, employment expansion, and social
integration. Thailand will be a full participant at this seminal
events, and a national report is now being prepared under the
leadership of Khunying Ambhorn Meesook.

The summit has been preceded by both national and regional
preparations. Significantly, Asia-Pacific countries gathered in
Manila last year to adopt the Manila Declaration on Social
Development. It adopted an array of targets and indicators on
poverty alleviation, particularly the commitment of participating
countries, including Thailand, to eradicate absolute poverty by the
year 2010. Will Thailand be able to attain this goal?

In retrospect, although Thailand's economic progress in recent
decades has been impressive, the scenario of social development,
especially poverty alleviation, leaves much to be desired. While the
country has enjoyed a consistently high rate of macro-economic
growth, there remain a number of impediments in the field of
social development which undermine the national development
process. Unless these are addressed officially, the benefits of
growth are likely to be illusory in the long run.

Key analysts agree that absolute poverty in Thailand has
declined in the past decade, but a substantial proportion of the
population are still faced with livelihood needs. This is closely
related to the fact that wealth tends to be concentrated in the
hands of an elite in principally urban areas. By contrast, the
majority of the population live in rural areas, and their basic
occupation is still agriculture, despite the national quantum
jump towards industrialization.

It is this group of people who are affected, first and
foremost, by the pervasiveness of poverty in various parts of the
country. This has been compounded by continuing migration of the
rural population to urban areas, often resulting in social
fragmentation and additional pressures posed by the spread of
slum communities. It has been aggravated by environmental
degradation in both rural and urban areas which takes its toll in
the quality of life of the people at large.

A key concern is comprehensive action for poverty alleviation.
The Thai government has been conscious of the need to address
this issue during the past few decades. Its policies in this
respect are found in its five-year National Economic and Social
Development Plans. Anti-poverty strategies have been a key
component of the national planning process since the Fifth
National Economic and Social Development Plan (1982-1986).
Currently, it is the Seventh National Economic and Social
Development Plan (1992-1996) which is being implemented. Partly
due to these plans and due to pressure from the non-governmental
sector, there is now greater emphasis on rural development and on
responses to basic needs, such as access to education, health
services and income generation.

Under the present government, which came into power in 1992,
land reform has been promoted as an essential component of this
process; it is targeted at redistributing land to those in need
and at converting denuded national forest land to land for
general habitation. There has also been an increase in medical
allowances to help the poorer strata of society. This has been
coupled with an orientation towards decentralizing power and
resources to localities so that people living in rural areas can
participate more in decisionmaking, implementing and evaluating
programs affecting their daily lives. Income-generation and the
creation of new employment and occupational opportunities are
part and parcel of current action to counter poverty.

Yet, there remain various discrepancies which are
disconcerting. The most glaring discrepancy is the widening
income disparity between the rich and the poor and the increasing
accumulation of land and other resources in the hands of the
haves rather than the have-nots. Paradoxically, while absolute
poverty is on the decline in the country, income disparity is on
the rise as a testament to social injustices. Such is the
anomalous law of inverse proportionality!

This is a repercussion of the lack of equity, namely lack of a
fair share of wealth, power and resources between all strata of
society, which has negative consequences for social development.
Action to counter the lack of equity has not been as forthcoming as
desired. For example, there is no wealth tax in the country. To
date, the tax base has not yet been used as an effective instrument
for distributing income and other resources in the country.
However, currently the authorities are moving towards using
various types of taxation for example local and municipal taxes,
to help develop targeted areas.

Other discrepancies including the following:

* Disparity between urban and rural areas, and continuing
massive out-migration of rural people to urban settings;

* Inadequate satisfaction of basic needs among the poorer
population;

* Family disintegration, evidenced by family breakup and
breakdown on many fronts, especially the shift from extended
families to nuclear families; from the family as a social safety
net for its members to dislocated individuals requiring other
forms of social assistance;

* A seizable number of children who fail to complete their
six years of compulsory primary education and inadequate access
to secondary and tertiary education, despite near-universal
access to primary education;

* Depletion of natural resources, pollution and other
environmental problems which point to a lack of sustainability in
the development process;

* Lacunae in land reform, thereby resulting in malpractices
due to vested interests which have profiteered from the
redistribution of land originally intended for the benefit of the
poor;

* Inadequate "social development incentives" as contra-
distinguished from "economic investment incentives", and
insufficient stimulus for the non-governmental sector to assist
communities in poverty alleviation programs;

* Limited budgetary allocations for poverty alleviation
programs at the national and local levels, compounded by
centralization of power, resources and decisionmaking in Bangkok;

* Decline of spiritual development and concomitant moral
dilemmas.