Anti-Corruption Initiatives of
Transparency Thailand – A Chapter
of Transparency International (TI)
Juree Vichit-Vadakan
Secretary-General
Transparency Thailand
May 23, 2013
I. Transparency Thailand’s structure and
strategies since inception
- Understanding and recognizing local
realities and context
- Cooperation and Collaboration with
external and local partners
- Maintaining independence and
autonomy
- Promoting transparency in various
dimensions
II. Critical Issues in Thai Society: The
Contextual Realities
- Pervasiveness of both ‘petty’ and
‘grand’ corruption
- Corruption manifests itself in different
spheres: Cross cuts and permeates
throughout society.
- Transparency is much cited but less
practiced.
III. Formal Anti-Corruption Measures Have
Been in Place:
- Since the 1997 Thai Constitution, many
institutional mechanisms to curb and combat
corruption such as
- The National Anti-Corruption
Commission
- The Ombudsman
- The Anti-Money Laundering
Organization
- The Public Sector Anti-Corruption
Agency
IV. Anti-Corruption legislations have been in place.
- Public Information Act came into existence
since 1997. Thailand has ratified the UNCAC
- Recently a private sector-led coalition against
corruption came into existence.
V. The Key Questions to Ask are What has gone
wrong?
1) Why does Thailand continue to face corrupt
practices in spite of existing legal and
institutional mechanisms?
2) What has gone wrong in Thai society?
Initiatives of TI Thailand
• Awareness Raising and Educating the Public
through Various Measures:
– Advocacy and dissemination:
• Investigative Reports
• Art Competition
• Youth Debates
• Media Interventions- Short Subjects–TV Spots
–Newsletters
The Great Awakening: Basis for
Reformulating New Strategies
• Legal and institutional mechanisms are
crucial and necessary.
• Values and mindset change even more
critical:
– Root Causes of Thai Situation
1. Deep-seated value system that
perpetuates
- Patron-client relationship- the debt of
gratitude
The Great Awakening: Basis for
Reformulating Strategies
- Cronyism
- Nepotism
- Self-interest vs. Public interest
- Personalism
- Collusion and Compromise
2. Fear of authority and passivity vis-à-vis the
power/status holders
3 Tolerance for and benign neglect of ‘wrong
doings’ against public good
Strategy for action:
• Value change is critical and unavoidable.
• Thai people needs to embrace and endorse new
values that will counter the behaviors that
condone corruption and deter and obstruct the
implementation of laws and the working of
existing anti-corruption mechanisms
A major project that Transparency Thailand
implements in its 4th year (with the support of
the BMA)
An Anti-corruption curriculum or the “Growing
Good Project”
- How to introduce values from pre-school to
high school
4 levels of interventions
1) Kindergarten-third grade
2) Fourth grade-Sixth grade
3) Seventh grade- ninth grade
4) Tenth grade-Twelve grade
- 5 Core values to be emphasized through
activities-based learning
- Learning should be interesting, challenging,
and fun
- Teachers need to be on board: Workshops
for teachers required.
- All learning materials need to be provided
- This innovative and creative initiative would
forego intellectual property rights in order to
serve larger society
- A media component was built in to
heighten awareness of the project:
- Short TV spots
- Back drops at bus stops
- Sign posts
- Bill boards
- Radio and newspaper spots
Accomplishments to date:
• The term ‘Tor-Pai-Mai-Kong’ is widely used
• About 3,000 BMA teachers trained
• More than 1,300 teachers from the Catholic Council of
Education schools trained
• Only about 80 teachers from other provinces are
trained
• The curriculum is used in all BMA schools.
• The theme song and dance are used by many schools
throughout Thailand
• There is spillover of this concept into public and private
agencies.
Lessons learned
• Desired social change does not happen via
legal and institutional change alone.
• Values are crucial because laws and
institutions do not and cannot operate when
society is ill prepared for them.
• Long-term change of human capital is crucial
• Patience, endurance and multi-sector
partnerships are central to value change.
• Well-meaning, well-intentioned people need
to be harnessed for synergistic effort in
fighting corruption.