Foreword
Thailand embarked on an OECD Multi-dimensional Country Review (MDCR) in July 2017, seeking support to its ambition to become a high-income economy by 2037. The review is a first deliverable of the 2018-19 Country Programme between Thailand and the OECD and aims at supporting public action by the national authorities of Thailand in sustaining sustainable development and progress in the well-being of its citizens.
Development is not about getting everything right, but about getting right what matters most. Economic growth matters, but is just one facet of development. Policy makers are required to reconcile economic, social and environmental objectives to ensure that their country’s development path is sustainable and that the lives of its citizens improve. OECD MDCR help governments chart this path through the identification of key constraints and policy recommendations to overcome them.
MDCRs are composed of three distinct phases: Initial Assessment, In-depth Analysis and Recommendations, and From Analysis to Action. This approach allows for progressive learning and co-creation of reforms that fully respond to the country’s specific challenges and opportunities. Throughout, the process conjugates expert policy analysis with participatory approaches including Foresight and Governmental Learning that involve actors from the private and public sectors, civil society, and academia. Analytical work is based on all available statistics on Thailand, including well-being, macro- and microeconomic data, at national, sectoral, household and firm level, using both domestic and international sources.
This report provides a synthesis of the previous volumes and focuses on the Northern Region of Thailand. The recommendations made in previous volumes have been further prioritised and adapted during two policy dialogue events in Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai in November 2018.
Building on these dialogues and further analysis, this report proposes an action plan and a scorecard with key indicators to monitor progress. Together the ideas for action and the scorecard outlined here can be the basis for accompanying a process of discovery and strategy making in the Northern Region aimed at developing the region’s full potential. Such a process would ideally bring together all necessary stakeholders and proceed in an evaluative manner, using the indicators of the scorecard to measure the achievement of progress.