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.