VN close to catching up with Thailand
Leads in UN report on MDGs achievements

KULTIDA SAMABUDDHI

Hanoi _ Vietnam is now not only close to catching up with Thailand when it comes to agricultural exports and industrial development, but also rivals it in progress towards the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Although the two countries successfully made it into the ''early achievers'' group, Vietnam is making far more progress than Thailand, according to the UN's latest MDGs progress report for the Asia-Pacific region.


Vietnam scored 0.59 on the UN index, the highest in the Asia-Pacific region, well ahead of Thailand's 0.1.


''Vietnam is one of the major success stories in the region,'' says the report, which appraises country performances midway in their journey toward the Millennium Development Goals in 2015.


Time-bound and quantified targets for addressing extreme poverty, the MDGs were launched in 2001 as part of the road map to implement the Millennium Declaration adopted by the UN member countries, including Thailand, at the UN summit in New York 2000.


The eight goals each country vowed to achieve by 2015 include eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, achieving universal primary education, promoting gender equality, reducing child mortality, improving maternal health, combating HIV/Aids, malaria and other diseases, ensuring environmental sustainability, and developing a global partnership for development.


Kim Hak-Su, executive secretary of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, lauded the Vietnamese government for showing strong commitment in forest conservation, developing the people's education and improving the healthcare system and making the country a world leader in its quest to achieve the MDGs.


Speaking at a two-day forum held to assess the MDGs' progress in East and Southeast Asia, which ended yesterday, Mr Kim urged East and Southeast Asian countries to learn from Vietnam's experiences if they wanted to achieve the MDGs.


He said Vietnam's most remarkable achievement was its ability to expand its forest cover from 29% of total land area in 1990 to 38.5% today.


Mr Kim called on all early achiever countries _ including Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, and China _ to help other countries like Bangladesh, Indonesia, Laos, Burma, Pakistan, and the Philippines from ''falling further behind''.


Kittisak Sinthuvanich, deputy secretary-general of the National Economic and Social Development Board, said Thailand was lagging behind Vietnam in terms of progress, but the country had performed better overall.


He said Thailand has met most of the targets set under the MDGs, except curbing HIV prevalence, deforestation, and CO2 emissions.


The report shows that Vietnam has been lagging in terms of primary education, gender equality, HIV prevalence, and CO2 emissions.


Mr Kittisak said Thailand's good rating stems from strong and continuous government policies in poverty eradication, healthcare and education, since the launch of the Fifth National Economic and Social Development Plan.


''If there are no unexpected incidents, such as natural disasters or an economic slump, Thailand will surely achieve the MDGs by the year 2015,'' he said.


However, Social Development and Human Security minister Paiboon Wattanasiritham, head of the Thai delegation, said the report might not reflect the real situation as it focuses more on quantity than quality.


Although Bangkok had been identified as an early achiever in the fields of education, medical care and poverty reduction, the fact is there are still a lot of extremely poor people in the country.


And it is no secret that Thais were generally weak performers in education due to the poor education system. Many patients in the country could not even afford the drugs needed to cure their illnesses.


In figures, gender equality seemed to have improved dramatically, but in reality, Thai women have not achieved parity in the upper levels of government agencies or in parliament, he said.


''We cannot judge progress from figures and statistics,'' Mr Paiboon said on the sidelines of the forum.


He said social and political rifts in recent years _ including the southern strife _ were hindrances.


''Peace and harmony are crucial to the development of well-being and the achievement of the MDGs. Thailand is facing problems of peace and harmony and this has hampered our effort to improve the people's lives,'' he said.


Erna Withoelar, the UN special ambassador for the MDGs, agreed, saying the MDGs efforts in some countries, including Thailand, were getting distracted by political changes and conflicts.

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