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Income Generation and Poverty Reduction for Development

Mekong InstituteKhon Kaen, Thailand

Format

General information of Thailand in brief

Government and Non-government

organizations’ interventions related to income

generation and poverty reduction for

development

Best practices concerning income generation and poverty reduction implementations

Problems, opportunities and challenges in those

interventions in Thailand

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I. General information of Thailand in brief

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AsiaAsiaAsiaAsia

CambodiaCambodia

BangladeshBangladesh

ThailandThailand VietnamVietnam

LaosLaosMyanmarMyanmar

ChinaChina

IndiaIndia

MalaysiaMalaysia

IndonesiaIndonesia

SingaporeSingaporeBruneiBrunei

Sri LankaSri Lanka

The PhilippinesThe Philippines

JapanJapanAfganistanAfganistan

PakistanPakistan

KoreaKorea

GMS GDP 1995 to 2003

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Thailand’s Regions

Which region is the poorest?

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Poverty Headcount

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Number of Poor

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Poverty Maps

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Who are the poor in Thailand? NESDB : Poverty line

Poverty line Β 1,443/person/month (B 17,316/year)

Poverty head count 8.5 percent (2007) Number of poor 5,400,000

CDD : Basic Minimum Needs Annual Income Β 23,000/person Poverty head count 4.6 percent (2007) Number of poor (HH) 356,140 out of 7,743,351

MOI: Poverty registration (2004) The poor register herself at the District branch and to

fill out a form stating the major reasons of poverty. The District office passes on the roster of the poor to

the village committee for assessment of their validity.

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Poverty Registration

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II. Government and Non-government organizations’ interventions related to income generation and poverty

reduction for development

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Sufficiency Economy PhilosophyOn 4 December 1997, King Bhumibol Adulyadej made his

usual birthday address to a nationwide television audience. The contents were anything but usual.

Recently, so many projects have been implemented, so many factories have been built, that it was thought Thailand would become a little tiger, and then a big tiger. People were crazy about becoming a tiger…

Being a tiger is not important. The important thing for us is to have a sufficient economy. A sufficient economy means to have enough to support ourselves…

It doesn’t have to be complete, not even half, perhaps just a quarter, then we can survive…

Those who like modern economics may not appreciate this. But we have to take a careful step backwards.

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Sufficiency Economy and Globalization

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III. Best practices concerning income generation and poverty

reduction implementations

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In-Pang NetworkSufficiency in agriculture:In 1987, a small group of community leaders and local scholars met together in Ban Bua, a village in the hilly region of the far northeast of Thailand, to discuss a major problem: the more they invested in cash- cropping, the deeper they slipped into debt.

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In-Pang NetworkStage 1: Grow what we eat and eat what we

grow

Within a few years, the villagers cultivated or collected a wide variety of food produce. They had enough for home consumption, for exchanging among themselves, and for selling to neighboring communities, generally at prices below the market rate.

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In-Pang NetworkStage 2: Community enterprises

As the success of the pioneers became better known, the In-Pang network began to expand. Often other villagers came to visit the pioneer areas in order to learn the new techniques. Later the network leaders began to visit neighboring areas to explain what they were doing and invite other communities to join. As the network became larger, it served as a market for a growing range of products made by community enterprises.

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In-Pang NetworkStage 3: Networking for diversity and security

As the network expanded, inter-village organization was needed to help structure production along the pattern of value chains. In the production of makmao wine, a few farmer groups prepared young plants in their nurseries, and sold them on to grower groups who raised them in community forests. They then sold the fruit onward to workshops making juice and wine. These in turn supplied the end product to groups with marketing skill who supplied community shops and other outlets. Pork processing, rice milling, organic fertilizer production, silk weaving and dress making all followed a similar pattern.

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In-Pang NetworkSustainable development

To best utilize their existing resources, the communities began to systematically collect information on the natural resources, local knowledge, social capital, financial capital, and other assets in the villages participating in the network. This information was used to develop community master plans.

The network also began to campaign for conserving the environment. Households were encouraged to make their own organic fertilizer from waste materials, and to grow timber trees rather than cutting from the forests. Some villages developed systems for recycling waste.

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IV. Problems, opportunities and challenges in those interventions in Thailand

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Policy Recommendation/CampaignKnowledge & Management

KM4POORWho are the (rural) poor?What are the appropriate (agricultural)

technologies for the (rural) poor?How to run the process of

commercialization (of agriculture) for the poor sustainably?

PPP?Empowerment? Risk management?

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