UN Secretary-General visits Thailand this week

 

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will arrive in Thailand on Wednesday to meet Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and meet United Nations officials and personnel in Bangkok as part of a three-country visit to Southeast Asia, according to a UN statement.

In the statement released here on Monday, the United Nations ESCAP said that the Secretary-General will be received by Prime Minister Yingluck at Government House where they will make a joint statement and take questions at 1.50pm in the Purple Room of the Thai Koo Fah Building.

The Secretary-General plans to visit flood-affected areas in Bangkok.

While in the Thai capital, he will also deliver a keynote address at meeting on universal health coverage at the United Nations Conference Center. 

The closed meeting is expected to be attended by Thailand’s minister of public health, health experts, civil society, diplomats and others.

The UN chief's visit also came in the wake of Thailand's worst recorded flooding. The kingdom’s Flood Relief Operations Center (FROC) reported that as of Monday the floods which began in August have claimed 562 lives, and two persons are missing.

More than five million Thais have been affected in the nationwide flooding, with 22 provinces, including a number of districts of the capital, still under water. The floods, however, have begun receding in many areas.

Severe flooding damaged 11,200,000 rai of farmland, 252 roads in dozens of provinces, and disrupted train services and land transport in flood-hit areas. (MCOT online news, UN ESCAP)

Rice trade likelyto fall, says UN

HAWAII : The volume of rice traded globally is expected to take a dip next year due to weakening demand and the effect of floods on Thailand's rice production, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation.

The United Nations' food agency said trade volume next year could fall to 33.8 million tonnes from the 34.3 million forecast for this year.

Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Surapong Tovichakchaikul said he had talked to his Vietnamese counterpart Pham Gia Khiem about the rice price next year on the sidelines of the Apec summit currently being held here.

As Vietnam was also hit by flooding, Mr Khiem was concerned that if the domestic price of rice went as high as the export price, it would pose an inflation threat to Vietnam.

Mr Surapong suggested that as a rice producer, Vietnam should be able to control prices for domestic consumption while allowing the export price to float higher.

Mr Khiem asked if the Thai government's rice mortgage scheme would increase the rice export price. Mr Surapong said the floods would result in lower rice production for the project, which would drive up the rice price. 

The ministers agreed the global rice price would soar.

Coordination lacking, say overseas agencies

Humanitarian aid experts say that poor coordination between the government and international organisations, including the United Nations, is hurting flood relief efforts.

Diplomatic sources said that while Bangkok had not made a formal request for UN assistance in the country's flood relief efforts, some technicians from nearby countries with expertise in disaster relief were flown in.

After not being given any work to do for two weeks, the technicians returned home.

Jackie Pollock, director of the MAP (Migrant Assistance Programme) Foundation, a Chiang Mai-based non-governmental organisation, said a similar lack of coordination is evident with other agencies.

"It's sad that we don't see much coordination from agencies with expertise such as the Thai Red Cross and other international players," she said.

Ms Pollock said migrant workers in particular were suffering as a result of this lack of coordination.

Ms Pollock said inter-governmental agencies such as the International Organisation of Migration should play a bigger role in monitoring the flow of migrant workers who lost their jobs due to the flooding of industrial estates and small and medium-sized enterprises.

Andy Hall, with Mahidol University's Institute of Population and Social Research, echoed Ms Pollock's concerns. Mr Hall said hundreds of thousands of flood-hit migrant workers have been neglected.

Only one shelter was set aside for migrant workers, the Labour Ministry's evacuation centre at Wat Rai Khing in Nakhon Pathom province.

However, they were recently moved to Ratchaburi province amid fears of possible flooding at the Nakhon Pathom centre.

UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon is scheduled to visit flood victims during his scheduled visit to Thailand on Nov 16 and 17.

Mr Ban is expected to pledge support for the government's relief and rehabilitation efforts during his visit, diplomatic sources said.

The sources said that despite Bangkok not formally requesting assistance, the UN's resident agencies last month held talks with officials from the foreign, defence, agriculture and cooperatives and labour ministries.

They talked about help they could offer the government as it responds to the flood crisis.

One of these agencies, Unesco, offered to help rehabilitate flood-hit world heritage sites, especially in Ayutthaya and Phitsanulok provinces. The UN's Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (Escap) also backed the flood-relief operation.

Escap executive secretary Noeleen Heyzer met Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra at the Flood Relief Operations Command at its former headquarters at Don Mueang airport late last month.

The UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has donated nearly US$100,000 (3.06 million baht) to the Thai Red Cross to purchase survival supplies.

Unicef delivered 20,000 mosquito nets to the Public Health Ministry.

The UN Refugee Agency has provided funding as well as 5,000 solar-powered lanterns and 1,300 plastic sheets.

The World Health Organisation disbursed aid from the Southeast Asia Region Health Emergency Fund to the Emergency Medical Institute of Thailand to support response workers, and buy life jackets and first-aid kits for affected families.

Floods Leave Southeast Asia More Vulnerable to Food Price Shocks

Farmers in Indonesia sitting in front of processed rice that is ready to be sold. Economists say rice farmers living below the poverty line could be the most vulnerable to the impact of floods in Southeast Asia.

Massive flooding in Thailand and elsewhere has destroyed large parcels of rice farmland, opening the possibility of higher rice prices and leaving Southeast Asia at greater risk of a food price shock.

Heavy rains and massive flooding have destroyed crop land in Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and the Philippines.

The United Nations says it is closely monitoring the potential for “serious food shortages” in several parts of Southeast Asia after floods affected agricultural activities and aid deliveries.

Rice farmers in Cambodia tend to their crops. Some 12% of the country's paddy fields are believed to have been destroyed due to the flooding in Southeast Asia.

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization's (FAO) Global Information and Early Warning System, in a report released on Oct 21, says although no precise figures are available, continuous rain and flooding is estimated to have damaged at least 1.6 million hectares of standing crop in Thailand, representing more than 12 percent of total national cropped area. Another 12 percent of the total area under paddy in Cambodia is also believed to have been damaged.

About six percent of rice farmland is damaged in the Philippines, while in Vietnam it is reported that as much as 7.5 percent of the farmland is destroyed.

Yang Razali Kassim, a senior fellow and analyst at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies of Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, says food security in Southeast Asia will certainly be affected by the floods in the region.

“The scale of the floods is unprecedented, and therefore, the threat on regional food security is also unprecedented. Rice supplies to the region is bound to be affected, adding to the pressure on food prices that have already seen rises in recent times due to shortages caused by erratic weather,” he said.

Before the floods, said to be Thailand’s worst in the last 50 years, the Bangkok government forecast rice production to stand at 25.8 million tons. But, the government predicts it may lose some six million tons of rough-rice from flooding. Analysts say Thailand, which accounts for 30 percent of global rice exports, has already lost three million tons of rice due to floods.

The price of rice is hovering at about $650 per ton currently, but rice traders are expecting the price to increase to $750 per ton, inching closer to its record-high level of $1,000 per ton in 2008.

However, many Asian countries control rice prices via government subsidies, making it unlikely that price hikes will hit most consumers in the near term.

Kamal Malhotra, U.N. Resident Representative for Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei Darussalam, said rice farmers living below the poverty line are among the most vulnerable to the impact of the floods, as they are likely to have the least bargaining power, least resources to organize themselves collectively and are more likely to sit at the lowest end of the production chain.

“Whether price increase[s] will result in income increase[s] for the majority of those involved in rice production varies, subject to how the production chain is structured and the relative bargaining powers between farmers, distributors and retailers,” he said.

Malhotra said that while floods and other climatic conditions may cause price increases, the current prices of rice and other food commodities are also partly cost-pushed due to a fuel price hike and also the ongoing policy to replace food crops with cash crops.

“Without reversing some of these policies, food prices will be extremely volatile to short-term ‘shocks’ such as floods, subsequently affecting food security,” he said.

He added that shortages in food supplies are exacerbated by the possibility of panic-driven protectionism that may also push up prices.

In 2008, a global food price shock mainly driven by rising oil prices caused political and social unrest in several poor and developed countries. A World Bank report released on February 15 said continuously rising food prices have pushed another 44 million people into extreme poverty and exposed them more to hunger.

The floods that hit Southeast Asia have not only destroyed crops and livestock, but also claimed hundreds of lives and displaced thousands of people.