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Statement by
H.E. Dr. Surakiart Sathirathai,
Minister of Foreign Affairs of Thailand
at the African Union Extra-ordinary
Summit
on Employment and Poverty alleviation
in Africa
Ouagadougou, Burkina
Faso
9 September
2004
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Thailand takes pride of the invitation extended
by the Government of Burkina Faso to attend for the first
time an African meeting of such high stature and, more importantly,
a Summit of the African Union.
Mr.
Chairman,
Excellencies,
Distinguished
delegates,
Thailand wishes
to congratulate H.E. President Obasanjo of the Federal Republic
of Nigeria on his assumption of the Chairmanship of the African
Union.
Thailand is gratified to have been invited
and attaches much significance to our first participation
at this African Union Summit. For the last four years, the
present Thai Government has taken new initiatives in Thailand’s
foreign policy emphasizing on what we call “Forward Engagement”
reaching out for partnership for development at all levels
of international relations. Thailand
deeply appreciates the opportunity to share with friends in
the African Union the experiences, successes, failures and
best practices on development as well as partnership for development.
During the visit of Secretary General Kofi Annan to Thailand
in July 2004, the Thai Government submitted to him Thailand’s Millennium Development
Goal Report, where we were among the first to achieve Goal
8 on “Developing a global partnership for development.”
Thailand is fully committed to the spirit
of South-South Cooperation. Thailand
is fully prescribed to turning the spirit of South-South cooperation
into real actions and real outcomes. And Thailand
is fully dedicated to meaningful self-help and partnership
for development. That is why we believe Asia and Africa
can forge a meaningful partnership, learning from each other
and helping each other for the betterment of each other’s
continent. That is why two years ago, Thailand advocated the invitation to H.E. President
Mbeki, then the Chairman of the African Union, to address
the Leaders of ASEAN or the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations, on NEPAD in Phnom Pehn, Cambodia
during the ASEAN Summit in November 2002.
That initiative served as a new momentum for the growing
links between ASEAN and Africa
as well as ASEAN's involvement in NEPAD.
On
our part, in the past few years, Thailand has been honoured
to receive a great number of Heads of State and Government,
Ministers as well as other dignitaries from so many African
countries, including President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni of Uganda,
President Ismail Omar Guelleh of Djibouti, President Robert
Mugabe of Zimbabwe, President El Hadj Omar Bongo of Gabon,
President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal, and President Fetus Mogae
of Botswana. Through these visits, and other bilateral
meetings between my Prime Minister and other African Heads
of State and Government in various occasions such as the NAM
Summit and the bilateral meetings with my counterparts from
African countries, we have found many areas of partnership
with our African friends both on enhancing bilateral relations
and in addressing global threats and challenges. And next
year will be visit Africa year for the Thai Prime Minister.
Mr. Chairman,
Employment and poverty alleviation are the two inseparable
issues. Opportunities create employment. Employment creates
income. Adequate income alleviates poverty. If governments
can gear the implementation of their policy towards reducing
expenses, increasing income and creating more opportunities
for their people, in linking employment with poverty alleviation,
they can be on the right track to improve the well-being of
their people. That is the main policy of the present Thai
Government and Thailand
commends the far-sightedness of African Leaders in linking
poverty eradication with the creation of employment opportunities.
This Summit will add further impetus to the African
Union’s integrated policies in generating employment through
promoting intra-African trade and developing local industries
and entrepreneurship. They are important strides towards achieving
the targets of the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGS),
as well as those principles set out at the LDC Brussels Conference
in April 2002, and the World Summit on Sustainable Development.
Thailand wishes
to share some of her experiences in economic recovery and
poverty reduction.
Thailand was seriously hit by the financial
crisis of 1997. When the present government took office in
January 2001, we inherited the legacy of severe economic set-back.
But today the Thai economy rests on a secure and solid foundation.
Last year, we achieved 6.8 percent GDP growth, second in Asia
only to China.
Our revised GDP growth for 2004 is at 6-7 percent, despite
the adverse intervening outbreaks of SARS and bird flu as
well as the immense impact of rising oil prices.
Last year, we paid back all the 12.3 billion US dollars
of IMF loans two years ahead of schedule. Notwithstanding
that, our foreign reserves continue to stand at the healthy
level of over 43.5 billion US dollars, much higher than its
peak before the crisis, despite more than 60% devaluation
of the currency as the result of the crisis. Our aim is to
eliminate poverty as defined by the UN before the end of this
decade.
Our success is guided by the principles of self-help
and partnership. We pursue what we call the dual-track policy.
This dual-track policy builds on local and grassroots
strengths in order to create a more equitable distribution
of wealth on the one hand, while maintaining the support for
export-led sector of the economy, which has long been the
traditional growth machine. In strengthening the grassroots
economy, we draw inspiration from the philosophy of His Majesty
the King of Thailand, known as “Sufficient Economy”, which
seeks to achieve sustainable development and better quality
of life, particularly for people at the grassroots level,
through readily available resources and practical applications
of technology. Given
the proven success story of “sufficiency economy” philosophy,
Thailand hopes to share this experience
with fellow developing countries. We will host the Ministerial
International Conference on Alternative Development: Sufficiency
Economy this November. We are inviting several Asian and
African countries which have shown interest in this philosophy.
Thailand is honoured and looks forward
to welcoming all of them.
To stimulate and strengthen the grassroots
economy, the Government has also put in place schemes such
as a nation-wide village fund, micro-credit facilities, small
and medium enterprise (SME) incentive schemes, and the one-village-one-product
scheme or what we call OTOP.
All of these measures were put together as a package
of powerful means to provide access to capital that the grassroots
had been deprived of, to develop human resources that had
been lacking, to yield extra income that had been hard earned
for poor villagers, and to stimulate cottage industries as
well as small and medium enterprises.
OTOP is aimed at building upon local ingenuity and
wisdom by bringing the unique products of each and every village
such as local handicrafts, silverware, nielloware, pottery
and weaving fabrics to the marketplaces, both domestic and
international. OTOP’s
guiding principles are to revive community pride while generating
income and employment for the poor villagers. After 3 years
of its implementation, last year, its sales reached 700 million
US dollars. Incidentally, many OTOP villagers have increased
their sales and found new local and international markets
through the internet. The Government has been successful in
introducing ICT to the grassroots in every village. Villagers
find ICT both relevant and useful in improving their quality
of life, improving their income and reducing poverty.
Mr.
Chairman,
Thailand may still
be a developing country. Thailand
may still have its own domestic economic problems to tackle
especially our aim at eradicating poverty by the end of the
decade. Thailand may be just a medium size
country, populationwise. And Thailand
may seem far away from the African continent. But Thailand has also come far enough
in our economic achievements. And for us, we know where our
friends are. Nearer or afar, friends in need are always friends
indeed. Whenever possible and ready, friends will find love
and help in friends. For Thailand we are
ready.
Forging partnership with Africa
to promote and achieve self-help and sustainable development
is what the Thai Government is committed to do. Holding hands
to stand and move forward with friends is what the Thai Government
has succeeded in our region and is doing so with friends outside
the region. Strengthening the South by creating meaningful
South-South partnership and bringing in more North-South partnership
is what the Thai Government prescribes and encourages all
to do so. Thailand has initiated the new economic strategy
to close the gap left wide apart by the economic disparity
between Thailand and our
adjacent neighbours. By bringing in outside partners from
developed countries, this economic strategy and partnership
with our neighbours will help accelerate the socio-economic
integration of South-east Asia.
Besides hundreds of scholarships that have been offered
to some 18 African countries, and the existing bilateral technical
support programmes, there is a lot more we can do together.
Thailand
stands ready to enhance our technical cooperation with Africa
through bilateral, trilateral and regional frameworks in line
with NEPAD and South-South cooperation.
We can also identify a number of areas that can contribute
to NEPAD's activities such as “food security” and human resources
development.
Whilst under the trilateral
framework, Thailand
offers to become
a
partner in the areas we have expertise.
In addition to Thailand’s
participation in TICAD, Thailand
is forging cooperation with Japan
under JICA and France
under French Agency for Development (AFD) and is currently
contemplating with the UK in providing
technical cooperation and training courses for African personnel. Our endeavours involve partnership with
the United Nations such as UNDP, UNFPA, and UNICEF in increasing
development cooperation with Africa.
All of these three levels of partnership cover, inter
alia, agricultural development, food and fruit processing,
fish culture, water management and primary healthcare.
Indeed, HIV/AIDS is a threat to development in countries
around the world. Africa is not alone in its fight against the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
In July 2004, Thailand
hosted a very successful 15th International AIDS
Conference, which encompassed all stakeholders in the fight
against HIV/AIDS under the theme “Access for all.”
We were honoured by the participation of African leaders
and dignitaries, whose contribution added impetus to addressing
this scourge. Thailand
is prepared to extend support and assistance to our friends
in Africa to tackle this common challenge. Our collaboration
should even extend to providing technical know-how on the
manufacturing of affordable anti-retroviral medication.
Human Security is also important if we want to achieve
real development for our people. Freedom from fear and freedom
from want must strike the right balance. On this note, as
fellow member of the Human Security Network, Thailand wishes to congratulate Mali who has successfully
chaired the Network for the year 2003-2004. Thailand looks forward to working closely with
Mali and South Africa when we take on the chairmanship
for the year 2005-2006.
Threats
from landmines are also threats to human security. As President
of the Fifth Meeting of the States Parties of the Mine Ban
Convention, Thailand is working with Africa
in realizing a world free from landmines and to make the upcoming
Nairobi Summit a success.
In so doing, Thailand will
coordinate with the World Bank on resource mobilization for
the implementation of the Convention.
Mr.
Chairman,
In Asia,
we do not have the privilege of sharing the 40 years of experience
in continent-wide cooperation as in the case of the Organization
of African Unity and now the adoption of the African Union.
Asia has had numerous regional,
sub-regional, intra sub-regional, and inter-regional cooperation,
none of which has been nor could be a link continent wide.
That was until June 2002.
Initiated by Thailand in June
2002, the Asia Cooperation Dialogue or ACD was inaugurated
to serve as that missing link. Aiming at turning Asian diversity
into Asian strength, the ACD now comprises 25 countries from
all corners of Asia. More
countries have indicated their intention to join. There are
as many as 18 functional cooperation projects, ranging from
poverty eradication to SME development, and tourism cooperation
to the development of an Asian Bond market. As ACD coordinator,
Thailand
is consulting with ACD partners in establishing an Asia-Africa
partnership through ACD-NEPAD linkage. Thailand
hopes to be knocking on your doors soon in realizing this
partnership.
Mr. Chairman,
Next year marks the Golden Jubilee of the
Asian-African Conference of 1955.
Upon that auspicious occasion, the Asian-African Summit
will be held in Indonesia. This summit will give political impetus
to a new Asia-Africa partnership.
Preparations for the 2005 Summit
have already been launched by the Ministers at the recent
Asian-African Sub-regional Organizations Conference (AASROC)
in Durban,
South Africa. The Ministers agreed to enhance coordination
between the sub-regional groupings of SADC in southern Africa
and ASEAN in Southeast Asia.
Both SADC and ASEAN can establish economic linkages. We can
learn from one another’s experience in strengthening regional
economic integration, particularly in bridging economic disparities
within their respective sub-regions. Let us make that Summit
a more meaningful partnership.
It is time our two continents made real
strides ahead and join hands to move forward to stand firm
against any challenges of globalization. It is time our two
continents built partnership as friends who can help and see
the benefit for each other. It is time, bilaterally or collectively,
we made ourselves heard as one when it comes to bringing peace
and prosperity to our respective peoples.
It is time our two continents truly acted as one regardless
of races, colours, religions, beliefs or culture for the benefits
of our peoples and the mankind. It is time our two continents
pulled strength for the common goal of eradicating poverty
and sustainable development. This is the time, from this Summit
on, where we can see the real achievement of the Millennium
Development Goal as a result of South-South partnership.
Thailand stands ready to join hands with Africa as a true friend and partner in accomplishing our
common aspirations for our shared destiny.
Thank you very much for your attention.
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