Academic and activist commentators spend a lot of time criticising the Thai state, in its various democratic and less-than-democratic forms. Much of the criticism is, of course, justified. There are strong violent and authoritarian streaks running through Thai public life. Corruption is common. And many observers are alarmed by the seemingly low standards that many Thai politicians observe.
But the Thai state also has some redeeming features. I recently saw a draft report about the performance of Asian countries in terms of the various Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). I only had a chance to glance at the report for a few minutes so I cannot comment in detail on its findings. But one thing did jump out.
Thailand has performed very well indeed.
A visit to the UNDP’s MDG site for Thailand makes for interesting reading. Here are the key points on Thailand’s performance.
Target 1: Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people living in extreme poverty. Scorecard for Thailand: Target already achieved.
Target 2: Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people who suffer from hunger. Scorecard for Thailand: Target already achieved.
Target 3: Ensure that, by 2015, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling. Scorecard for Thailand: Target highly likely.
Target 4: Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education, preferably by 2005, and in all levels of education no later than 2015. Scorecard for Thailand: Target already achieved.
Target 5: Reduce by two thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the under-five mortality rate. Scorecard for Thailand: Thailand has made great progress in reducing child mortality since 1990. In general, child and maternal health care, for example vaccination and pre-natal care, is universal. Lack of adequate health care is evident primarily in the remote and mountainous northern provinces and in the southernmost provinces.
Target 6: Reduce by three quarters, between 1990 and 2015, the maternal mortality ratio. Scorecard for Thailand: Target not applicable. Starting from an already relatively low level, maternal mortality continues to fall.
Target 7: Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS. Scorecard for Thailand: Target already achieved.
Target 8: Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the incidence of malaria and other major diseases. Scorecard for Thailand: Target already achieved for malaria Target potentially achievable for tuberculosis.
Target 9: Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes and reverse the loss of environmental resources. Scorecard for Thailand: Target potentially achievable.
Target 10: Halve by 2015 the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation. Scorecard for Thailand: Target already achieved.
Target 11: By 2020 to have achieved a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers (globally). Scorecard for Thailand: Target likely.
Of course, there will always be valid arguments about the usefulness and validity of country reporting on some of these goals. Some of the judgements about achievement may be questionable. And, as we have noted many times on New Mandala, there are very significant regional disparities in Thailand’s human development performance.
But the big picture is relatively clear. On a wide variety of human development indicators Thailand has performed well. Politics in Thailand may be messy, sometimes authoritarian and often corrupt. But in delivering basic services to the Thai population, the Thai state (both before and after the MDG goals were set) seems to have got many things right.
16 responses so far ↓
1 Bangkok Pundit // Jul 4, 2008 at 1:42 pm
Andrew - anything doing under Thaksin was done for cynical political purposes so they don’t count
2 EFG // Jul 4, 2008 at 3:42 pm
Civil servants? NGOS? Real people through their own efforts? Do you two seriously think that Thaksin, Samak & Chalerm and all the other slimeballs here have even read about Millenium Goals? You seem to have fallen for the local tendency to credit Pu Yais for something they have never even thought about. Other people do the grunt work.
3 Reg Varney // Jul 5, 2008 at 12:52 pm
EFG, you need to take of those scratched reading glasses - Samak, Thaksin, Chalerm? In the original post -which seems to make a distinction between state and government - these names don’t come up. So BP makes a comment about Thaksin and you go ballistic implying that no government matters and such achievements - over many years and many governments - is actually all about people power. Get back to the PAD demo and chant away there in this lamentable way.
By the way, I seem to recall that the UNDP report on SE also had some of these achievements reported.
4 efg // Jul 6, 2008 at 3:28 am
PAD? Joke! Dumb royalists!
5 Frank // Jul 6, 2008 at 8:26 pm
Maybe someday you people at New Mandela could do a comprehensive study of exactly what “corruption” is. The USA, being an incredibly litigious country, has a very legalistic definition of corruption, hence, a lot of what really is corruption is labeled as “not” corruption within the USA simply because it is supposedly legal.
Thailand is not perfect and neither is The West. So I think you could have been a little more positive in your opening remarks.
Frank
6 Compassionate Badger // Jul 7, 2008 at 10:52 am
Thanks for the numbers. Why is there so much tension between the commenters?
7 Reg Varney // Jul 7, 2008 at 11:33 am
Crikey Frank, you mean you’ve never read any literature on corruption? On Thailand, why not begin with the famous book by Pasuk and her colleagues on Corruption, published a few years ago, but still available.
By the way, I’m not sure New Mandala is trying to be the new Mandela, especially as the old one is still alive and active.
8 efg // Jul 7, 2008 at 4:54 pm
Tension between posters. Yes! It goes like this. Some folks want to protect the status quo because it has been good to them. And they can envisage no other reality. Others are prepared to ignore the Thaksin TRT PPP negatives because when you’re in business you have to forge alliances regardless of whether you truly feel comfortable with them. Still others don’t really have an investment in either side and are quite prepared to sit and observe the two interests slug it out. One may not have a gun, but even the apparently passive observer has his anger at how the other two have the gall to try and monopolise everything that moves. My guess is some here are in a position where they have to take sides to protect their considerable investments of money, time and energy in this country. It isn’t pleasant to have to admit you have been laboring for years in vain. Which is why they have to pull off the hoary old commie-kicking stunt of calling somebody a PAD supporter.
Fantasy! I don’t think so! People don’t react to things so vigorously without some sort of reason. My reason is taking the occasional puff at those who think they their business is all that matters. It helps to relieve the tension.
9 efg // Jul 7, 2008 at 5:08 pm
10 Frank // Jul 7, 2008 at 6:24 pm
Reg -
Just for the record, I could fill page after page of this blog with examples of what I and most other people (including in Thailand and Asia) would consider to be corruption here in the USA. And every bit of it is “legal”.
The underlying issue here that needs to be dealt with at some point is that the USA wants to impose its version of legalized corruption on the world in general, and in the developing world in particular. A haphazard system of corruption in a place like Thailand makes it far more difficult for the USA to impose its supposedly superior western values.
11 Reg Varney // Jul 7, 2008 at 8:00 pm
But Frank, don’t you think that what is called corruption here might be locally defined in Thailand and that some might just think it an issue here as well, irrespective of what the US government does or what people there think?
I’m not suggesting that there is no corruption in the US, but I am not sure what that actually has to do with the current and recent debates in Thailand.
I’m also not suggesting that various interests in the US (and other places too) don’t try to influence thinking and policy on corruption internationally.
But I am suggesting that all the surveys and writing done here (and a lot of the politics that goes on) has much to do with local concerns about corruption.
12 Reg Varney // Jul 7, 2008 at 8:02 pm
efg: puff away.
13 Sidh S. // Jul 7, 2008 at 11:16 pm
” The thing that just about every blogger on Thai issues ( both Thai & non-Thai) usually forgets is that they will never be a true part of the real equation. We will never be anything other than spectators. Spectators with bad seats too…”
Well put efg!
Here, I’d like to take the opportunity to acknowledge the real Thais who are ” doing some things right” according to Andrew - I would argue that they have done MANY things right, not just some. I know many of them personally - from classmates and contemporaries who finished undergraduate studies together to those who finished their education abroad and chose to go back to enter the strait-jacket system of the Thai bureaucracy (I must also include those in the private sector doing work for the state) and do the best they could within the system’s constraints. I get to catch up with them once a year - yes, they complain a lot about the corruption, the collusion, the patronage (etc…etc…) - while keeping themselves in check so as not to be ’swallowed’ by the system over the decade-plus. Those with family also have real worries of their children’s education and future prospects (and sometimes succumb). It is indeed an honor to have their acquantance (and, come to think of it, I should actually let them know the next time I drop by if it is worth anything).
As you said, efg, I am a spectator here - although I have many ‘good seats’ via my family and friends who are doing the best they can in their jobs for the country… Thanks Andrew for reporting some positive news too!
14 jonfernquest // Jul 9, 2008 at 10:21 pm
Sidh: “I’d like to take the opportunity to acknowledge the real Thais who are ” doing some things right” according to Andrew - I would argue that they have done MANY things right, not just some.”
I agree completely. I began my life in Thailand in rural Thailand near the border area and came to believe that everything was messed up (drugs, AIDS, greed, gemstones).
Then I moved to Chiang Rai, and things were more orderly, idyllic even, the old airport being a health park that everyone converges to in the evening for bicycling, badminton, or just to walk the dog. People have a healthy attitude to education and fitness, even more so than in the states where I come from. Then later, at night there is the night bazaar a healthy place where families or young people can go for some entertainment together. There’s also a vibrant art scene and a French culture center. And all you need is a little Honda Dream motorcycle to get around town. You can even put your Shihtzu in the front basket, where she will sit proudly until you reach the restaurant where she can even eat with you (not off the same plate).
Then for better and more challenging work I moved to Bangkok. Even though it is a lot more expensive (you really need a car which I don’t have) people have a more cosmopolitan and informed view of where the country needs to go, and are extremely open to influence from the west, perhaps too much so, that I feel is what causes the occasional nationalist backlash or concerns with khwaam-ben-Thai.
Anyway, like Tarissa governor of the Bank of Thailand said, Thailand has a diversified economy that will protect it from outside shocks, self-sufficiency is part of that, and also a diversified hybrid culture, wattanatham-krung, just like luk-krung, that will protect it from cultural extremes, both foreign and domestic. Thailand is as good as it gets.
15 Sidh S. // Jul 11, 2008 at 3:44 pm
“Thailand is as good as it gets” - jonfernquest, tears welled in my eyes as I read your comments!!! That last sentence, although I don’t totally agree with, are sentiments that I’ve heard from many locals through the years. Indeed, as here, they were also uttered with conviction, but I always had my doubts (is it a case of the more you say it, the more you believe it?).
For foriegners, I always thought it is related to tourism, and the novelty of a new place eventually wears down. And, as we all know, Thailand is BIG TIME tourism - and very successful at that (see a recent article from Nation: “Bangkok voted world’s best city in travel poll ” in:
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2008/07/10/national/national_30077784.php
reporting a poll conducted on Travel and Leisure’s online readers)
So to hear this from you (although who can’t really be strictly classified as a ‘foriegner’ - maybe a Thai permanent resident?), backed by your years of lived-in observations/experiences (amidst all the negatives we have been discussing here) does somewhat confirm that many things are indeed right and good about the country and its people…
16 A murderous mix of impunity // Jul 22, 2008 at 10:25 am
[...] couple of weeks ago I commented on Thailand’s impressive performance on the Millennium Development Goals. I suggested that the [...]
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