Thailand ready for big summit (2)

Thailand ready for big summit (2)

By Vitit Muntarbhorn

This is the second installment of a two-part article on social development issues in Thailand.

BANGKOK: What should be Thailand's expectations from the World Social Development Summit and from itself in preventing and remedying the consequences of poverty and the lack of equity?

Thailand should demand the following from the international community at the world summit:

1. Social development, especially poverty alleviation and measures to tackle the lack of equity, should be established as a high priority for action at the international and national levels. This should be targeted towards specific timeframes, with effective budgetary allocations, to realize clearly defined goals in the short, medium and long term, for example five, 10 and 15- 20 year timeframes. The framework for such action should take the form of international and national plans or programs of action, reflecting the key concerns of poverty alleviation, equity, expansion of productive employment and social cohesion, with measurable targets for monitoring and evaluation.

2. The international and national communities should strategize to overcome the patterns of unbalanced development and the lack of equity which hamper the progress of many countries, especially developing countries. This calls for international and national restructuring and concomitant budgets so as to promote social development as part of sustainable, human and humane development and as part of an expected sense of global community and solidarity.

3. All countries should foster the promotion and protection of human rights, including the rights to development and the right to social security, in keeping with international standards.

4. States, national and international organizations should advocate concretely that the success of economic development does not necessarily guarantee social development. Action is thus required at both the international and national levels to ensure that there is a balance between economic development and social development and that the benefits of growth are shared equitably between all strata of society.

5. The global community should propagate the message that social development has both material and non-material dimensions. The latter calls for greater promotion of spiritual, moral and ethical development as part of basic human needs and aspirations.

6. International and national measures should be adopted to reflect the fact that social development requires multi-faceted, inter-sectoral and integrated action targeted at human development. In this context, poverty alleviation and measures to counter the lack of equity require joint efforts between not only States but also between States and non-State actors, including nongovernmental organizations, community groupings, the mass media, the business sector, families and concerned individuals.

7. The World Summit should propel a vision oriented towards the centrality of "societies" rather than "economies". In this perspective, there is a need to foster and regenerate communities, organizations, families and individuals who can offer social protection with and for each other and who can provide social safety nets for those in need.

As for Thailand's expectations of itself for improved performance in the next decade and millennium, the following concerns are particularly pertinent:

1. The Thai government should adopt more effective anti-poverty strategies both nationally and locally. One the one hand, this calls for multi-pronged action to alleviate and eradicate poverty especially in rural areas and slum communities. On the other hand, it advocates the need for greater equity to ensure that wealth and resources are shared equitably by all members of the community and that they are deconcentrated from the hands of an elite.

2. The Thai government should aim for greater decentralization of power and resources so that the localities, especially those in rural areas, can participate fully in initiating and implementing anti-poverty programs.

3. The Thai government should respond more effectively to the basic needs of the poor and promote more income generating activities in the localities so as to provide the inhabitants with the socio-economic means to remain there rather than be pressured to migrate to other areas in search of a viable livelihood.

4. The Thai government should reform the tax base so that it can facilitate income distribution and resource allocations to help those in need.

5. The Thai government should foster action to prevent families from disintegrating and should assist needy families by promoting adequate means of livelihood and a national and local fund to help disadvantaged families, as well as access to education, training, credit, technology, cooperative and occupational opportunities.

6. The Thai government should enhance access to primary, secondary, tertiary and other types of education, both formal and non-formal. Action is required to counter the phenomenon of dropouts from primary education. This may include more scholarships to help children in need and subsidies for impoverished families so that they will facilitate children's access to education.

7. The Thai government should improve implementation of national and local plans for the preservation of natural resources and to ensure greater accountability of those who damage the environment, as well as greater community participation in protecting the environment.

8. The Thai government should adopt more concrete measures to lessen the disparity between urban and rural areas. In part, this can be done by providing more incentives for rural industrialization, such as by means of small and medium-scale industries in rural areas and self-employment opportunities through more training, access to credit and technology and the formation of cooperative groupings to market products and generate income.

9. The Thai government should accelerate land reform to redistribute land to those in need. This is dependent upon transparency and accountability of the process so as to prevent unscrupulous elements from profiteering from land reform.

10. The Thai government should provide more social development incentives, as contra-distinguished from economic development and investment incentives, to stimulate action in favor of human development. This can take the form of more tax relief and other privileges accorded to non-governmental organizations and community groupings working in the area of social development. The authorities should also increase budgetary allocations in he area of social development, and foster greater local, nongovernmental and community participation in this process.

Vitit Muntarbhorn is Professor at the Faculty of Law, Chulalongkorn University. He is Executive Director of Child Rights Asianet and a contributing editor of The Nation.