UNDP-UNEP Poverty-Environment Initiative

Thailand

Please downloadthe PEI Country fact sheet on Thailand (PDF)

Basic facts of the PEI in Thailand

• The PEI Thailand programme is a joint programme of the Government of Thailand, UNDP Thailand and the UNDP-UNEP Poverty-environment Initiative. The programme was officially launched in March 2010 and will run until December 2012. PEI Thailand is incorporated into the overall UNDP Thailand programme under the One UN programme strategy.
• Phase I of the PEI Thailand programme aims to strengthen inclusive planning and budgeting processes at national and provincial level for environmentally sustainable, pro-poor development. Related objectives include benefit sharing arrangements from ecosystem services, awareness raising and the engagement of the private sector to support pro-poor sustainable development.
• The main implementing partners include the Ministry of Interior, in collaboration with the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, the Regional Environmental Office 8 and the Regional Environmental Office 10, Provincial Administration Organizations, Samut Songkram Chamber of Commerce, and the Office of the National Economic and Social Development Board.
• The PEI Thailand Phase I total budget is USD 701,550 (PEI USD 400,000; UNEP-DEPI USD 220,000; and UNDP funds USD 83,000).

The context of poverty-environment mainstreaming in Thailand

• Thailand has achieved remarkable economic growth, but this has brought undesirable social and environmental impacts. Rising per capita consumption, industrialization, and the intensification of agriculture has led to severe deterioration of natural resources. Overall distribution of income in Thailand is uneven and incidences of poverty remain high amongst rural populations.
• Forest cover fell from 53 % in 1961 to 25 % in 1998. The legacy of deforestation includes conversion to dry lands, sedimentation of rivers and loss of natural habitats and water scarcity. In the fisheries sector, overharvesting of marine fisheries has reduced fishing yields by 90 %, and coastal areas have been seriously degraded by expansion of capture fishing, shrimp aquaculture, industry and tourism. Of particular concern is the tremendous pressure on Thailand's available water resources. The impact of environmental degradation falls disproportionately on the poor.
• The expansion and intensification of agriculture has placed enormous strain on ecosystem functioning. Intensification of agriculture together with efforts to increase forest coverage through natural resource and environment policy have also led to social problems, increasing landlessness, joblessness and urban migration. There is a strong link between changes in agricultural sector and poverty in the rural areas of Thailand.
• Recent political reforms and a shift in Thailand's development paradigm offer a key policy entry point for PEI Thailand. The political and administration reforms enhance inclusive planning in terms of integrated provincial and provincial clustered strategic plans.
• Thailand's development agenda is guided by a five-year National Economic and Social Development Plan. The direction of the new 11th National Economic and Social Development Plan to achieve the green economy and green society and the strategy to strengthen the community as a key mechanism in the development process and as one of the "six dimensions of resilience" of the country provides an excellent opportunity for Poverty-Environment mainstreaming advocacy in Thailand.

Main activities

• As part of PEI Thailand, a sub-global assessment has been launched in collaboration with UNEP-DEPI's Millennium Assessment Project and with financial support from Sweden (SwedBio and SIDA). The aim is to define available ecosystem services, possible future scenarios, and to determine adequate policies.
• The sub-global assessment process in each pilot province is conducted by local institutions: (Khon Kaen University in Khon Kaen Province; Thailand Environment Institute in Nan Province, and the Thai Research Fund in Samut Songkram Province). The process of designing and implementing a sub-global assessment constitutes an on-going capacity building process for the local counterparts in making the links between ecosystem services and human well-being as well as between assessments and development plans.
• Building capacities and training provincial and local administration officials in the application of appropriate planning and budgeting tools including spatial planning, scenario planning, economic analysis, and ecosystem assessment.
• Improving coordination and transparency of decision-making procedures between national, provincial and community political authorities through improved communication channels and measures.
• Providing capacity development support for local communities to improve organizational capacities, networking and advocacy skills as well as technical and political know-how for planning and budgeting policies for poverty-environment mainstreaming through training and sharing of good practices.
• Supporting regional knowledge sharing, media outreach and networking on public and private investment plans, pro-poor and sustainable economic analysis, and sustainable natural resources management within the ASEAN context.
• Supporting participatory research and public forums to review existing mechanisms, system, and tools and to assess gaps and potential channels for poverty-environment mainstreaming in the area based development planning at national and sub-national levels.
• Developing policy recommendations for improvements of mechanisms, system, and tools at national level (e.g. policy framework, regulating, and monitoring mechanism) to increase policy coherence and local interest for development planning that does not undermine the poor or the environment.
• Strengthening capacities of agencies and institutions responsible for area based development planning at national, provincial and local levels as well as capacities of communities in advocating for environmentally sustainable pro-poor development planning at all levels.
• Advocating experiences and lessons learned from poverty-environment mainstreaming at the regional (Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and Asia Pacific countries), national, provincial, and local community levels to strengthen networks which support environmentally sustainable and pro-poor development.

Main achievements 

• PEI has been instrumental in building stronger collaboration (traditionally very little coordination exists) between the Ministry of Interior (planning agency) and the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment at national and sub-national level to strengthen joint efforts in poverty-environment mainstreaming.
• Good progress has been made in assessing, identifying and addressing gaps for poverty-environment mainstreaming in planning processes both at national and sub-national levels. At the Ministry of Interior, a technical working group with representation of all departments was established to review and synthesize existing mechanisms and system for area based development planning. Likewise, in Khon Kaen province, the existing tools and mechanisms supporting development planning have been reviewed and recommendations provided to relevant provincial and local stakeholders. In Samut Songkram province, existing mechanisms and system for community development planning (directly linked to local development planning and provincial development strategy) have been reviewed and a baseline assessed.
• Capacities of government planning officials at national and provincial agencies and local sub-district administration organizations as well as local communities have been strengthened through various training workshops and events on poverty-environment linkages and mainstreaming as well as the application of appropriate planning and budgeting tools such as spatial planning, scenario building, economic analysis and ecosystem assessments.
• The PEI team advocated successfully for the establishment of a Nan Watershed Fund through the Nan Watershed Committee (a sub-committee of the National Watershed committee). It is hoped that, once successfully established and operational, it will provide an example for establishing other watershed funds nationwide.
• Two Sub Global Assessment processes, including the identification trends and condition assessments of ecosystem services in Khon Kaen and Nan provinces have been completed, and scenario building processes with local participation is on-going. In Nan, the scenario building process has been adopted by the Nan Agricultural Office, the provincial arm of the Ministry of Agriculture. In Samut Songkram province, the conceptual framework for a third Sub Global Assessment process including community based research has been approved.
• The Sub Global Assessment processes have proved to date successful in launching a social process of creating networks with local communities to jointly learn on poverty-environment linkages and enabling local communities to understand and act upon linkages between ecosystem services and human well being. It is expected that this will result in better participation and advocacy of environmentally sustainable and pro-poor development at community and local level planning processes in the long-term.
• In Nan province (northern Thailand), the sub-global assessment process provided technical and financial support for local people to explore alternatives to maize mono-cropping towards more integrated and sustainable farming, while still maintaining their income security. The sub-global assessment enabled the Provincial Administrative Organization to better manage pressure from agribusiness linked to corn-based livestock through investments in watershed management and more secure land tenure.
• In Khon Kaen province in northeast Thailand, the Regional Environmental Office is working with the local government officials to support the provincial planning and budget process to better manage expansion of ethanol production, given the limited carrying capacity of the area in the Phong River Basin. The sub-global assessment process in Khon Kaen provided information and tools for provincial and local planners to make better decisions on provincial and local development strategies that consider the balance between income generation and environmental management.
• In Samut Songkram province in the Gulf of Thailand, the Regional Environment Office is working with local government officials and the private sector on provincial planning and budgeting to better manage pressures for rapid industrialization and mass tourism.
• PEI has strengthened networks to create better awareness and understanding on poverty-environment issues, such as a youth network in the four-districts in Samut Songkram within the "Young Explorer" programme.
• A Geographical Information System Centre, co-funded jointly by Nan province and PEI, was established to serve local communities with community land surveys and mapping to better advocate for community land entitlement issues.

Lessons learned

• Poverty-environment mainstreaming requires cross-agency coordination and capacity building among various stakeholders at national and subnational level. Consensus building and agreement on programme activities has proved to be a very time-consuming and intensive process because of the different agendas of the many stakeholders.
• The on-going decentralization process in Thailand allowing provinces to formulate their own development plans and secure budgets directly from the Budget Bureau is still very new to provincial and local government agencies, and efforts are needed to support the understanding of this process.
• The Sub Global Assessment process is new to Thailand and requires substantial amounts of time for learning-by-doing among local scientists and professionals and relevant stakeholders in the provinces.
• Cooperation and coordination of other PEI activities and Sub Global Assessment processes are essential to ensure the assessment process sufficiently provides specific evidences on poverty-environment linkages to be used to improve mechanisms for poverty-environment mainstreaming.
• Communities usually have knowledge about poverty-environment linkages as their livelihood depend greatly on natural resources and environment but they benefit from tools to formalize and communicate their knowledge and understanding.

Way forward

• Further improve coordination between the Ministry of Interior and Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment on institutionalizing poverty-environment mainstreaming into both development policy and environment management policy.
• Strengthen advocacy and communication with policy bodies on improving mechanisms, system, and tools that support poverty-environment mainstreaming at national (Ministry of Interior), provincial (Khon Kaen), and community (Samut Songkram) levels.
• Further sharing lessons learned and experiences of the PEI-Sub Global Assessment processes with other ASEAN and Asia Pacific countries.