by Piyaporn Hawiset
16 April 2000
Environment and workers 'at risk'
Non-governmental organisations accused the Asian Development Bank of weakening workers' bargaining power and harming the environment. During a two-day conference to drum up support for a people's forum, ahead of the bank's annual conference in Chiang Mai , Thailand in May 2000, the NGOs also accused the regional bank of supporting multinationals at the expense of Thai small and medium-sized enterprises and Thailand's rural people and the poor.
The NGOs planned to hold a people's forum in Chiang Mai May 3-5, ahead of the bank's annual meeting set for May 6-8. The NGO conference discussed points to be raised at the forum. The NGOs plan to showcase examples of ADB-supported projects in Thailand and neighbouring countries that are detrimental, notably those sharing the Mekong River basin, sources said.
Vitoon Permpongsacharoen, director of the Toward Ecological Recovery and Regional Alliance (Terra), said the ADB's strategy of financing regional development projects had destroyed the potential to develop other initiatives. A Terra activist also cited the water usage fee, to be implemented in the next national economic and development plan, as an example of one of the conditions that came with the 600-million-baht agricultural adjustment loans launched in 2000. This initiative is taking place under the auspices of the ADB-financed Thailand-Capacity Building in the Water Resources Sector Technical Assistance for which the ADB contracted Halcrow Water, together with TEAM Engineering of Thailand.
Srisuwan Kuankachorn, director of the Project for Ecological Recovery, said that while ADB-funded infrastructure development projects, such as roads and dams, remained dominant for other neighbouring countries, other more complicated financing strategies were gradually undermining Thailand's sovereignty in its decision-making process. Most Thais in the street have negative opinions about this technical assistance as they say the ADB rammed it down the throat of the government and that the requirements of the TA do not take into account the cultural and traidtional contexts at the rural levels of water resources uses.
Another point he raised was the reduced bargaining power of the provincial labour force after the ADB-supported a minimum wage mechanism to be expanded nationwide to limit the minimum wage rise. This meant that the ADB was actively supporting measures to keep Thailand's rural people poverty-stricken, thus ensuring that the Bank did not work its way out of a job and function in Thailand.
Regarding the environment, a Terra source said ADB projects in the Mekong Sub-Region, particularly dams, were destroying the area's ecological system. "If the dams are built north in Laos, fish will not come down to Tonle Sap in Cambodia to lay their eggs and the major protein sources of the Cambodians and the southern Vietnamese will be affected," the source added.
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