The origins of the national strategies

Why was your committee first interested in national strategy development, and initially was it among the work assigned to the committee?

I would like to trace back to my own history a bit. You must know that national strategy development is actually the same issue as public policy development. At the Thailand National Defence College, where I took a class, we have long been emphasising national strategy development, and my own thesis focused on public policy developments and implementation by Thai cabinets.
Each year, the college produces several studies on the subject, but unfortunately these papers often end up on the shelves.
I got serious about this again when I was a member of the now-defunct National Reform Council [NRC]’s public administration committee, where I met a senior student who attended the same college.
We started to seriously discuss the issue and how to materialise what we had studied as we both felt that a national strategy was important. So, under the committee, a subcommittee on the development of a national strategy draft law was set up, chaired by me.

How was the idea developed?

From there, we started to delve into the idea, and we got really serious around early last year. We had piles of research papers at hand from our old college and from overseas. The idea had even inspired a book I liked, “The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for 21st Century” by George Friedman.
Then we sifted through the papers to see how other countries addressed and dealt with it. We learned that several countries, far and near, even neighbouring countries such as Singapore or Malaysia, all had their own national strategies. They used to have nothing, but now they had progressed in their development paths.
As members of the reform body, we looked into the issue and we could see why our country desperately needed such a strategy, too.
Firstly, our country’s development policies are so disconnected, partly because they are tied to political parties’ policies. When there is a change of government, these policies also change. This generally prompts disruption in the implementation and discontinuity in the policies themselves.
An educational policy, for instance, is often disrupted and bent to political parties’ policies. Worse, it is sometimes made populist. Education cannot be populist because it must be based on quality. I always wonder how politicians can turn education into populism.
Secondly, our national development plans are scattered and based on ministries’ missions. Ministries tend to protect their own interests rather than give importance to the integration of development plans.
Some plans may be integrated with the efforts made by the National Economic and Social Development Board (NESDB), but these mostly focus on social and economic development purposes.
Such scattered plans then consequently affect the state budget distribution. Our state budget is set following these disconnected plans, and hardly effectively in responding to the country’s needs.
With almost all of policy development dominated by the state or politicians, we can barely see people able to participate in determining their future in this country. The level of public participation in this aspect is relatively low at present.
And lastly, developed countries generally have national strategies to help guide their development paths, so should Thailand.
After our literacy reviews and analyses, we then started to look at the country’s needs to see what we really wanted to achieve. We then came up with the country’s vision for the next 20 years as well as the national strategy development framework.
If the country is like a plane, our national strategy would be its flight plan that would help to guide the plane’s direction.
As the country was entering a phase of reform, we thought it’s the time.

What happened afterwards?

Our committee then developed a national strategy draft law as a key driver of the national strategy. We then proposed it to the NRC, which endorsed it in June of last year.

Did the government know anything about this?

I would like to put it this way: I think it had some staff observing the work. I can say this because shortly before we submitted our report to the government in early July, if you remember, the prime minister on his weekly programme stated clearly that national strategy development would be part of his government’s policies. And on June 30, the Cabinet then resolved to set up “a national strategy development [preparation] committee”, which clearly reflected his intentions.
Afterwards, we held discussions with various sectors. The NRC also held more than 900 forums in at least 10 districts in each province to gauge people’s opinions about the charter being drafted at that time. And at those forums we also asked people what they wished to see in the future.
We actually brought people’s opinions back to ask our 18 committees before synthesising them into a set of data inputs, which were then forwarded to the newly set up national committee.
I learned that they had assigned the NESDB [National Economic and Social Development Board] to develop a national strategy model based on the inputs. From there, the long-term plan would include a five-year development directive, which would be in line with the five-year economic and social development plans.
So, I can say that this is all about the country’s development. It has nothing to do with politics.

So the government had nothing to do with this idea as has been speculated?

As I said, it might have had its own staff monitoring news and updates, and learned of developments from there.
Or you would rather like to ask me straightforwardly, wouldn’t you? Whether we had received “an order” from someone to do this? I would tell you that, it’s “S” which told me to do this. “S” means “samnuek”, or consciousness, which told me that it’s time to reform the country. If we do not, the damage would be irreparable.
I would like to insist here that there was no one telling us to do this. But I can tell you that we did collaborate after the NRC had endorsed our report.
You must know that the prime minister is a soldier, and as a soldier, he and any civil servants working on security issues are very familiar with and keep an eye on any strategic developments, I trust.
I used to work as a secretary to the Cabinet, and was given a strategic security report from the National Security Council to study.
Unfortunately, the NSC’s security planning normally covers only security issues, while the NESDB covers only social and economic aspects. You can see a loophole in our country’s strategic planning here. So, that’s also the reason why we need holistic strategic planning, and our draft law will help close this loophole.
It will also help integrate all the plans, and help set priorities for the country’s development goals as well as the budget spending. You may have noticed that the new charter draft has addressed that spending must be in line with the strategy, and this could help prevent politicians from exploiting the state budget. It should not be like that anymore, right?

You said you two [the government and Yongyuth’s committee] finally got connected. Then how have you been working together ever since?

After the Cabinet set up the new committee and received our report, it then sent to “a Gen” [a General] to join our meetings. This was a bit semi-formal because he observed the progress and exchanged ideas with us. This lasted around two months before the NRC was dissolved.
We had agreed that my committee would focus on developing the mechanisms including the new draft law, while it [the government] would work on developing the strategy content.
I and other committee members also went to meet some key figures of the government. We worked together openly.
So, now you can see when we actually met and worked together.
I must say they never interfered with our work or touched our draft law. After the NRC dissolved, the Gen [that General] never came back.

What happened after the NRC was dissolved?
The NRSA was set up to replace it, and we set up a new working group to brush up the draft law. This time we invited representatives from other sectors including from the private and civil sectors to join the group to help broaden our perspective. Meanwhile, we still communicated with the government’s committee via another military officer.
We then forwarded our report and the draft law to the NRSA, which later endorsed it with a majority vote of 164.
Some NRSA members recommended changes to the draft law and we took them into consideration. In conclusion, the new draft law was changed from the previous version by around 15 per cent.
What was changed following the recommendations, for instance, included a clause regarding a new joint committee that would be set up in case Parliament and the National Strategy Committee disagreed on policy. The new committee would include representatives from both Parliament and the National Strategy Committee, and would deliberate to resolve the disagreement. Once the joint committee reached a solution, it would return its recommendations to Parliament, bypassing the National Strategy Committee, and Parliament would have the final say.

Some political observers have said the new committee proposed in the draft law has been designed to help prolong the tenure of those in power?

The bodies under the draft law include the National Strategy Committee acting as a policy committee, the management committee overseeing administration and the secretary’s office.
The policy committee or board would initially, as addressed under Article 55 in the provisional chapter, comprise 25 members, 22 of whom would be selected to represent 12 major reform agendas. The final three members would be the prime minister, the NRSA chair and National Legislative Assembly [NLA] president.
I would like to stress here that these memberships would be attached to their positions. If you are not in a position that has been mentioned, how could you sit along with the others, right? This is nothing to do with fixed terms, it’s really about positions used to determine whether someone is in or out of the committee.
If you were not the NLA president, how could you still sit and work with the others? Neither could a prime minister. If PM Prayut [Chan-o-cha] was not a prime minister, then he would have to leave the board. So, drop it – the speculation that there would be an attempt to prolong power this way.
There has also been some effort to liken the committee to the former National Strategic Reform and Reconciliation Committee (NSRRC), but I would like to say that they are different.
You can see that we have no army leaders sitting on the committee, unlike the NSRRC. There would be one or a few coming in due to the quota of 22 experts for the 12 reform agendas. That’s it. And to be fair, we need to include security as part of the agendas.
So, you will see that it’s not prolonging power, but continuing the reform agenda. A critical question that we need to ask is, whether we can still be indifferent to see the country continue like this without any clear path?
 
But some people still say this body may overrule future governments, if not prolong the current government’s power?

In the end it’s up to Parliament, which would deliberate and endorse policy, as I told you earlier. So, the board has no power to decide anything at all, it only has duties. If it found critical damage as a result of governments’ failure to implement a strategy, it would help alert concerned agencies. It would act as “an X-ray machine” and its findings must be open to the public.

But the strategy would still tie governments up?

Well, let’s say that we have worked for them, for fruitful outcomes. We have good politicians, and we also have bad politicians. If they were bad, do you think that they would pursue such a thing like this?
If politicians think that the strategy would affect their work, they can actually change that, as we have stated clearly that the strategy will be subject to a review every five years. So, why are politicians so bothered about it? Do good politicians not want to see the country move forward for the better?
We would not have seen large-scale corruption like what happened in the rice-pledging scheme if we had had the strategy and relevant mechanisms in place.
People may have think that this is all about a handful of people working to determine the country’s future, but I must say that we have actually come up with a new clause stating clearly that public participation will exist in all processes concerning the strategy, from development to assessment.

Do you think the government will take up your proposal, considering the surrounding controversies?

I think we have tried to think it through as thoroughly as we could, although not perfectly yet. I cannot say at this point that they will go ahead with the idea, but I would like to compare it with a 4x100 metres relay race. I have done my part and passed it on to them, so I will from now on sit in the stands and give them a loud cheer.