October 2004
Mr. Pittyapol Nattarol, President BAAC, with a delegation of BAAC senior officers and two senior officers attached to BAAC from the EU funded Social Support Project, visited RAP to hand over 60 copies of three FAO-SDA training manuals translated into Thai language. The Hand Over Ceremony was chaired by Mr. He Changchui, ADG RAP. The meeting was also attended by Mr. Konuma DRR and a delegation of RAP technical officers.
The BAAC plays a major role in national development as an agricultural bank aimed at providing credit and related services to an estimated 5 million farmers. The BAAC is seen as a model bank for other Asian countries seeking to improve rural credit services to small farmers and other rural producers. Thailand is a major agricultural export country in the world and the agricultural sector is in process of transformation in response to liberalization in trade including agricultural commodities. The BAAC, with technical support of the EU, has widened its vision and mandate from being a public institution providing agricultural crop loans into a rural development bank with a much wider role in the implementation of national government policies aimed at poverty reduction and improved food security in rural areas.
In his welcome speech Mr. He highlighted the global agenda of the UN for the 21st century to promote human development and reduction of inequalities by giving foremost priority to eradicating extreme poverty and hunger as set out in the 1996 World Food Summit Action Plan and 2000 UN Millennium Declaration and Development Goals. Thailand plays an active role in shaping FAO’s policies and priorities and is dedicated to implement pro poor sustainable development programs. Mr. He thanked Mr. Pittyapol Nattarol and his BAAC team for the collaboration with FAO in this joint effort to respond to actual needs of farmers and rural private sector organizations for improved delivery of services, as rural producer groups.
The President of the BAAC Mr. Pittyapol Nattarol thanked FAO for the excellent collaboration in the implementation of this co-publishing agreement for the translation and printing in Thai of the three FAO manuals for group enterprise development. The publications have assisted the Bank to develop with EU project support a wholesale strategy approach to deal with group lending and savings and development of group enterprises. Against this back ground the BAAC found three FAO-SDA training manuals built on 30 years field experience in small farmer focused self-help group approach in Asia, most useful tools for training of its field staff and ultimately the farmers themselves. The manuals have been successfully pilot tested in nine provinces as part of EU project support to develop training skills within the BAAC on participatory approaches for group formation, group management and provision of business development services to promote micro finance and micro–business.
The FAO manuals translated into Thai have been distributed to 600 BAAC branches in the country and are used by its 7.500 BAAC field staff for capacity building on enterprise development by its clients, including small farmers groups, informal savings and credit groups, village funds, community enterprises and cooperatives.
The manuals will ultimately be beneficial for the BAAC’s rural client households and their groups as well as for its large stakeholder partnership including the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperative Development, the Community Development Department and Tambon Authority.
Mr Pittyapol thanked FAO, in particular Mr. John Rouse and Mr. Wim Polman from the SDA Division, Mrs. Kirjavainen now FAO in Laos and MR. Sutton at the Publication Department in Rome.
At the handing over ceremony Mr. Pittyapol handed over to Mr. He in total 50 sets of the 3 books as stipulated in the Letter of Agreement (LoA) No. LL/2003/15 signed by FAO and BAAC of which 10 sets will be sent to FAO HQ.
In return Mr. He handed over a small set of relevant RAP publications which could be of use in the BAAC’s capacity building activities on farmer enterprise development within the country.
The ceremony was closed by Mr. He with thanks to all BAAC, EU project and FAO staff for their presence and contribution at this event.
After the hand over ceremony tea and coffee was served and informal discussions took place among BAAC and FAO officers on possible future collaborative activities.
Please find attached as annexes:
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