Management of Third Sector Highland Development Projects in the Upper Northern Region of Thailand

ICPM-2012. Crisis Management in the Time of Changing World Management of Third Sector Highland Development Projects in the Upper Northern Region of Thailand Jumpol Chaiwong (Email Address: jchaiwong97@gmail.com) Abstract The first issue involved the process of project management in seven dimensions: (1) In this dissertation, the researcher investigates organization structure; (2) planning; (3) (1) the management process involved in Third personnel management and development; (4) Sector highland development projects in the budget; (5) leadership; (6) control and upper northern region of Thailand; (2) evaluation, and; (7) organization ethics. conducts a strategic management analysis of The second issue required focusing on these projects; (3) inquiries into the results of strategic management in three dimensions: (1) the management of these projects, and; (4) vision; (2) mission, and; (3) strategies. provides new information concerning the management of the projects under study.In this 2.The third issue necessitates examining the study, the researcher focused on six results of project management in four organizations: (1) Mae Fah Luang Foundation dimensions: under Royal Patronage; (2) Highland Research and Development Institute (Public (1) the economy; (2) society; (3) the Organization); (3) Population and Community environment, and; (4) attitudes toward the Development Association; (4) Raksthai general public. Foundation; (5) Plan International Thailand Accordingly, the researcher collected data Organization, and; (6) Heifer International from: (1) primary sources taken from field Thailand. study work in conducting in-depth interviews with administrators, personnel, community Keywords: project Management , the Third leaders, and local people participating in the Sector, the Upper Northern Region of Thailand projects, group discussions, and participatory and non-participatory observations, and; (2) 1. Introduction secondary source materials involving documents, articles and related research Highland development in the upper northern inquiries. region of Thailand is conducted not only by the 2.1Findings are as follows: public and private sectors, but also by another type of organization called “the Third Sector”. The six Third Sector organizations conducted Third Sector organizations are nowadays project management largely in accordance with playing an important role in community a matrix organizational structure. The development in the upper northern region of management stressed delegating authority and Thailand. Inasmuch as there have been no community participation in improving projects previous Public Administration academic at all project stages involving planning, studies of these Third Sector projects, the operations, using the budget, and follow-ups researcher was interested in providing new and evaluations of projects. Authority was information and data concerning this new area decentralized, inasmuch as high-ranking of inquiry. administrators delegated decision making to In carrying out this investigation, the lower-level managers and encouraged researcher utilized a conceptual framework that teamwork at lower levels in a process of was applicable to the following three issues: project decentralization. Project administrators embraced a form of democratic leadership by © 2012. The authors - Published by Atlantis Press 114 stressing collective decision making and work Guidelines could then be formulated for processes, good ethical practices, teamwork, systematically dealing with the serious paying mutual respect and placing value on all problem of highlanders not having Thai involved to ensure the successful execution of citizenship. Since the Third Sector projects. Most applied the concept of organizations have limited budgets, it is sufficiency economy to project management. suggested that the state should establish an In addition, it was also found that Third independent organization to provide financial, Sector project management made use of a academic, technical and informational support. strategy of network cooperation with 2.3Background community organizations and private sector organizations at the local level. The upper northern region of Thailand consists Findings concerning project management in of hills and forests, and is a residential area for the four dimensions considered by the more than 10 tribes and ethnic minorities. The researcher are as follows: hill tribes are mostly Karen, Hmong, Lahu and (1) In respect to the economic aspect, it Akha. These areas are considered very was found that Third Sector important upstream sources of water for the management developed a strategy country. During the past 40 years, the of promoting sustainable population growth rate of hill tribes has rapidly agricultural production. increased, and accounted for 80% of the total (2) In this connection, autonomous population scattered sparsely along the hills. groups were organized in such a They needed more area for cultivating opium fashion that they would be able to to earn a living, but due to their increasingly overcome the problem of poverty rapid population growth, various problems by fostering income generating arose that can be summarized by the following occupations and to solve the issues: problem of internal and external Intrusion deforestation: Although the social conflict so that problem of opium cultivation is now only communities could develop slight, intrusion deforestation still exists. In effective social networks. addition, the legal use of land by the (3) In regard to the environment aspect, government promoting single crop agriculture, group support for conserving and constructing roads, and building reservoirs and sustaining the environment was dams seemed to increase problem of intrusion fostered by allocating a budget deforestation. Moreover, the growth of resort for this purpose. golf courses, parks, and other agricultural (4) As for the aspect of attitudes toward encroachment enhanced this serious problem the general public, the researcher because of the use of machine tools in the found that community leaders and invasion, destroying and opening forest areas most of the local people involved which lead to more natural disasters such as in the projects were aware of the floods, landslides, forest fires, and soil-erosion. benefits to be received and were (The Office for Academic Services, Chiang willing to exchange the role of Mai University, 2008, pp.1-1). “receiver” to that of “giver.” The problem of natural resource degradation: 2.2.Suggestions in regard to policy on the The land is no longer suitable for agriculture. basis of this study are as follows: This was a result of the traditional slash-and- burn agriculture of hill tribes in which the Most of the local people do not have Thai cultivated area is constantly moving location citizenship. Therefore, the researcher suggests depending on the fertility of the land. This kind that the government adopt a policy of of agriculture called “shifting agriculture” examining the question of citizenship for which exposes the surface of the soil to rain highland residents in conjunction with the and results in direct erosion resulting in a amassing of appropriate data by sub-district reduction of soil fertility, and with cultivated administration organizations, community land becoming rocky. organizations and NGOs involved in highland The problem of agricultural chemicals development. residues in soil and water: Inappropriate agricultural production by farmers who live on 115 the uplands is due to a lack of appropriate Difficulty in accessibility of the locations of knowledge and skill in production. This communities on the uplands. The obstacle of problem affects water resources and people accessibility impacts development of basic who live in and around downstream areas (The services of the state including a better Highland Research and Development Institute marketing system. This directly results in low (Public Organization), 2007, pp. 32). efficiency of production, which in turn brings Poverty: In general, most of the people about the problem of poverty, food security, living in the uplands are poor. According to illiteracy, and higher rate of illness as well as baseline survey data from 2004 conducted by drug use. This is also due to settlements of Chiang Mai University, the average annual highland people being mostly near to the income of households was only around 1,004 borders of neighboring countries, so it is US$ . The crucial factor of poverty was due to difficult to control drug trafficking. low yields in agricultural production but high Attitude. People who live in the plains areas costs, as the price of agricultural produce is and government agencies misunderstood relatively low and fluctuates, as well as having communities in the highlands, especially limited marketing channels. In addition, communities in the upper northern region of farmers lacked opportunities to generate Thailand located near the origins of four main additional income from non-farm activities rivers – the Ping, Wang, Yom, and Nan – which led to insufficient income to offset which join to become the Chao Phraya River. household expenses and there was a wide Deforestation of the upstream areas of these difference of income distribution in their rivers lead to the problem of soil erosion and society. (Highland Research and Development making the river shallow, while soil erosion Institute,(Public Organization), 2007, pp. 32). can occur downstream as well. In addition,

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