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.