Enthusiastically responding to NGO- COD's invitation, the Bank sent a group of eleven people to the meeting, led by the country director, Mr J. Shivakumar. Despite the long association between the World Bank and Thailand, this was the first time that Bank officials and Thai NGOs have formally met with each other. Academics and NGOs criticised the CAS as not designed to benefit the majority. This information is available on the website and in books. The critics recognised it as an evasion tactic.
Rhetorical strategies sound beautiful but hard to attain.
To these NGOs and academics, the Bank continues to refuse to discuss alternative solutions to the crisis of economy in Thailand. Many insist that the export orientation is at odds with the self-reliance policy recently advocated by His Majesty the King himself. The Bank continues to insist that the public benefits from this export policy. They also insist that its public legitimacy rests with the fact that it comes into the country at the request of the government, which is one of the Bank's stakeholders, and an elected governments represent the people's interest. What the World Bank seems to ignore is that many groups feel that the government is made up of political parties formed to protect the interests of the political elite and big business.