Mr. Chairman,
Mr. President,
Distinguished Governors,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is a great honor for me to attend this 29th Session of the IFAD Governing Council on behalf of the Governor, Mr. Banphot  Hongthong,  the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives.

Thailand has always appreciated IFAD's endeavor and successful operation in addressing poverty and hunger problems, in a sustainable way, in different parts of the world and, for its attempts to cope with new global challenges. 

Let me now reiterate briefly some issues on IFAD's operation which are still being discussed in our on-going debates and that some previous speakers of List C have raised in their statements.

The first issue is the Performance Based Allocation System.  We understand that the system of regional resource allocation was recently designed and is being implemented on a trial basis.  So, it should not be changed again in a hurry.  A deeper review should be made by the Executive Board to study if the proposed change may have any negative impact on small countries.  It should not either lead to competition, nor controversy between regions.

The second issue is the Voting Right and the Membership in the Executive Board.  We would encourage participatory discussions of all the Lists to review the existing mechanism and to propose a modification in such a way that it will suit the present situation and remove the disadvantages.

Another issue that I want to raise is the Associate Professional Officer.  Thailand's view is in line with IFAD's principle to recruit its staff by taking the objective of equitable geographic distribution into account.  We think that equal opportunities should also be enhanced so that developing countries can nominate their young staff to work with IFAD as the APOs as it will be one of our effective capacity building means for our development staff.  To this end, financial support should be provided to developing countries from IFAD's regular budget which can assure availability and continuity of resource better than a voluntary fund.

Mr. Chairman,

Although Thailand is not a recipient country of IFAD's project like it has been in the past 18 years, we keep on contributing to IFAD's operation in a regular manner, within our capacity.  It is the strong determination of the Thai Government and the Thai people to give our hand, even a small one, to those who are in more difficulties than we are.

Thailand is a developing country. We know that there are still lots to learn to catch up with the changing world of non-stop advancing technologies and new challenges. However, we believe that, sharing experience and lessons is a way by which we can learn from one another.

The poverty problem is a global issue of international dialogue and cooperation.  Certain problems affecting people's livelihoods are trans-boundary or across border and must be addressed in a multinational framework. Thailand is therefore actively pursuing many bilateral, sub-regional and regional cooperative activities under the framework of ASEAN, Greater Mekong Sub-regional Programme, BIMSTEC and several other arrangements that enable us to address common problems collectively.

The actual widespread of the avian influenza requires an immediate collective exercise as it is a threat for humanity and, causes at the same time, a tremendous negative impact on global economy and food security, especially for the rural poor.  In this regard, Thailand calls for IFAD to play an active role in coping with this challenge with its comparative advantages.  We wish to commend IFAD's immediate action to insert the debate on this issue in our meeting agenda which has given us the opportunity to learn of IFAD's activities on this area and to share our views.  We have also been assured by Mr. President's statement yesterday that IFAD has frequent high-level dialogues with the executives of other UN. Agencies, like the FAO and the WFP, so as to establish cooperation among these agencies within their respective mandates and capacities.  We urge that this would require coherent, inter-supportive and complementary actions to the existing program, put in place by a respective country, region or international organization. 

Distinguished Governors,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

To conclude my statement, I wish to confirm Thailand's continuing support to IFAD's program and Thailand's cooperation with any countries or international organizations for the sustainable development of peoples' livelihoods in any corner of the world and the conservation of a healthy environment for our future generations.

Thank you very much for your kind attention.