วันพุธที่ 12 ตุลาคม 2565
Remarks by His Excellency General Prayut Chan-o-cha (Ret.) Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Thailand at the 2nd ASEAN Women Leaders’ Summit
“Building a More Sustainable, Inclusive and Resilient Future: Unlocking Women’s Entrepreneurship in ASEAN”
It is my pleasure and honour to be part of the 2nd ASEAN Women Leaders’ Summit. I commend Cambodia for recognising and building upon ASEAN Leaders’ commitment at the First ASEAN Women Leaders’ Summit in 2020 where we placed the importance on the role of women in strengthening a sustainable ASEAN Community post COVID-19. The outcomes of that Summit have been incorporated in the “Declaration on Building a More Sustainable, Inclusive and Resilient Future: Unlocking Women’s Entrepreneurship in ASEAN” which will be adopted at the ASEAN Summit in November this year.
During the past three years, the challenges we have been facing are the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic which has had tremendous impact on peoples’ health, economic and social well-being, especially on women entrepreneurs in MSME. A number of reports revealed statistics that more than 50 per cent of women entrepreneurs around the world lost their income or businesses and a lot of women in informal employment were directly impacted as a result of employment termination.
The Thai Government has underscored the importance of the women empowerment, especially for women entrepreneurs and women workers. We believe that investing in empowering women can help bring about real benefits to the social development and economic stability. To achieve this, Thailand has undertaken measures to empower women in the following three dimensions:
The first dimension is enacting policies that empower women. We translate our commitments into actions through the implementation of the Action Plan for Women’s Development 2023 – 2025 which identifies core elements in strengthening women’s human capital throughout their lifetime, including through education, career advancement, and public health services, with greater recognition of the importance of broad social and economic opportunities in women’s self-improvement and development and their role in developing the country.
The second dimension is capacity building for women. We have undertaken programmes to equip women with entrepreneurial skills and digital literacy enabling them to participate in the digital economy. We have also worked with partners to increase women’s access to funds for MSMEs and create access to working capital to support the jobs of rural women workers.
The third dimension is creating a conducive economic environment. Thailand has declared the economic empowerment of women as our national agenda. We have implemented policies that encourage women and increase their roles in driving the economy. These include setting-up of nursery service centers for children under 3 years old, encouraging paternity leave to allow fathers to assist mothers in the care of children after birth, and allowing extension of maternity leave with pay.
I believe that the next step for ASEAN is to further empower women to become a key driving force in economic development and part of the ASEAN community building that is sustainable and united in the post-COVID world. To this end, ASEAN should do the following:
First, we should implement gender mainstreaming into economic policies both at the national and regional levels. These policies include gender-responsive budgeting, gender responsive public procurement, as well as setting up of business incubation centres to strengthen women capacity in taking part in MSMEs.
Second, we should encourage setting goals that enhance women’s abilities to learn from the past and tackle future crises such as climate change or new challenges that may emerge in this world of uncertainties and complexities.
Lastly, in a constantly changing world, we should promote a new economic development model which is the Bio-Circular-Green Economy Model, or BCG. This model connects the Sufficiency Economy Philosophy which is in line with the Sustainable Development Goals and ASEAN’s efforts in promoting environmental conservation with the economic recovery and public health security. Thailand has utilised the BCG to help support the role of women, including the implementation of the Entrepreneur’s Capacity Building Project for Women in the three Southern Border Provinces of Thailand and the allocation of gender-responsive budgeting. Thailand also has a number of successful women entrepreneurs in BCG-related ventures, who can serve as role models in promoting sustainable growth.
I firmly believe that cooperation and unity within ASEAN are essential in the empowerment of women, including promoting the role of women entrepreneurs through the ASEAN Women Entrepreneurs Network or AWEN. These efforts will bring about an ASEAN Community that is equal, prosperous, and people-centred where no one is left behind.