Analysis of agenda setting, public policy formulation, implementation and development: a case study of Thailand's village and urban community fund

Abstract

The objectives of this study were to study the agenda setting process, policy formulation, implementation, development of the Village and Urban Community fund. The research method was qualitative, combining the document research and indepth interview with the key informants related to the policy formulation and implementation, in order to study the policy agenda setting process, implementation, and the factors contributing to success, problems, and obstruction in policy formulation, as well as the model of policy development. The result including the following points.

1) Policy Agenda Setting. The researcher applied John Kingdon’s Multiple-stream Model as the analysis framework of the policy agenda setting process and found that the Village and Urban Community Fund Policy emerged when the problem stream, political stream, and policy stream converged. The problem stream that led to the Village and Urban Community fund was the government’s policy instrument to tackle poverty and build economic opportunity for people, that they could access the formal source of capital in the village level. Besides, the policy entrepreneurs anticipated the necessity to boost the macro economy at the grassroots level, in order to develop Thai economy after the 1997 economic crisis. The policy stream was the result of the background idea behind the formation of the Village and Urban Community Fund, or the policy reference for the policy maker, which included the previous government’s policy to solve poverty problem, the knowledge base from the villager’s saving group, and the knowledge base from the private development firm who had experience of founding the financial group in various area. In addition,

the village fund policy also combined the connotation of boosting the grassroots economy of Thailand simultaneously with strengthen the society. As for the political stream, the Thai Rak Thai party developed the policy strategy in order to fight during their election campaign and gather the political base from the political group or other interest group, that it became the important opportunity for the policy entrepreneurs to obviously act in the political stream, cumulative form the existing policy of other political parties, and raised this policy towards the political stream by using the policy to build the voter base for the interest group and the political party. Therefore, it could be concluded that the three streams were the important factor in the convergence of each stream and finally push the policy agenda towards the opening of policy window.

2) Policy Implementation. It was found that there were some mutual factors which could contribute to success or become the obstruction in the policy implementation, including the president and village fund committee, the national politics, the administration process and suitable resource allocation, the people’s participation, the system of auditing and evaluation, and the development of body of knowledge and the village fund’s innovation. Nevertheless, it should be noted that during the process of fund administration, both in the National Village Fund Office and the village funds still lack the integration among organizations and network, which was one of the obstacles during the policy implementation. It would be obvious that the policy analysis required the understanding that policy implementation is a dynamic process which related to the interaction between various factors or context. The mentioned factors could all affect the success or failure in the policy implementation.

3) Policy Development. The village fund should consider other activities apart from the financial lending activity, in response to the community context. The village fund should developed itself into the community activity center, including the economic activity which could help the villagers to sustain their lives, or the social activity which strengthen the community. The development should focus towards being the community financial institution and cumulative community welfare. However, the activity development in various dimension should happen according to the community’s readiness. Moreover, the villagers should be encouraged to develop the body of knowledge and think about the new direction of self-development under the direction of country reformation.