Mr. Chailert Limsomboon, the Ambassador of Thailand to Nigeria, was in Enugu and Anambra States to observe the free school meal programme initiated by the Pan-African Community Initiative on Education and Health (PACIEH), an NGO founded by Prof. Uche Amazigo, a public health physician, lecturer and former Director of the World Health Organisation’s African Programme for Onchocerciases Control (WHO-APOC). In this interview, the ambassador speaks on the programme and Nigeria’s potential in agricultural development and expresses Thailand’s willingness to help
Mr. Chailert Limsomboon
Mr. Chailert Limsomboon
After going round to see the primary schools where the school meal programme is being run, what is your impression?
I like the idea of the project very much. I was very delighted to see that such project is being implemented here in Enugu State because this project addresses fundamental issue of human rights, food, education and healthcare. And the targeted people are the most vulnerable in the society - woman and children. So, I was very delighted to see the programe being implemented successfully here in
Enugu State with the cooperation of the Pan-African Community Initiative on Education and Health (PACIEH) who initiated this kind of idea to support the schools in the state.
Is there any way your government can assist in the programme? The idea of my visit to Enugu is to explore the possibility of how to help cooperation with PACIEH on this project.
So, when I go back to Abuja, I will communicate with the Ministry of Home Affairs in Bangkok about the possibility of cooperating with PACIEH on this project.
You were talking of sustainability of the project. How would you advise the coordinators in that direction?
In Thailand, we faced financial crisis in 1990 but still somehow, from the crisis, we have grown now. To sustain it, you have to rely on yourself. As long as you rely on someone else, you will not be sustained because that someone else may decide to withdraw his assistance. That is what we learnt from our financial crisis in 1990. Now, we try to rely on our own resources in Thailand. Don’t depend on external assistance, and I think that’s a very, very important factor in sustaining the programme. And that is what I would like to recommend to the stakeholders of this project; that the school feeding programme can be sustained if the community, the most important supporters of the school can rely on themselves. I mentioned earlier about agriculture.
Today, you saw the mothers of the children working in the kitchen to cook for their children in the school. So that’s the kind of self-sustenance I am talking about. So if they can have their own materials from their school garden, they can have chicken in their own poultry farm, then they might not need to rely on anyone or anything outside their relations to make the school meal programme sustainable. That is actually what I mean by the sustainability of the school meal programme.
Now let’s come to agriculture. Your country is widely known for rice production, what …
(Cuts in) Actually, Thailand is not, we are not a highly developed country. Rather we see ourselves as a middle income country but in the area of agriculture, we think we are one of the best in the world; so we are not second to anyone in the agricultural sector especially in the food processing industry. I mean this expertise that we have in agriculture, I think we can share it with our friends, especially here in Africa or West Africa.
Are there plans to transfer your agricultural knowledge or technology so that Nigeria can benefit from it? Yes. Nigeria and Thailand can have cooperation in the area of agriculture. Actually, we have to start to help some Nigerians training in Thailand in the agricultural sector. The Thai embassy in Abuja, for example, will help some experts from the ministry of agriculture from Niger State going to Bangkok to have a training on rice milling or we have some experts from the National Centre for Agriculture Mechanization in Nigeria going to Thailand to be trained in the area of mechanization in agriculture; that we have already done and I think we are going to do it in the future, too.
Do you think Nigeria can meet up with Thailand in terms of advancement in agriculture?
Why not? In agriculture, what do you need? You need people. You need arable land, good land, which you (Nigeria) have, and you need water. I think Nigeria has everything but somehow, your government has realized that Nigeria has neglected agriculture for some time but now the government has started to pay more attention to agriculture and I welcome that idea and Thailand is ready to cooperate with Nigeria in this area.
Currently, what kind of bilateral relationship does Thailand share with Nigeria?
Thailand and Nigeria have a very good bilateral relationship. Thailand has established the Thai embassy in Africa in Lagos. We established diplomatic relationship with Nigeria two years after Nigeria gained her independence. So, our relationship is more than 50 years old now but I think there are still quite some areas which we can improve on potentialities of our two countries to expand our trade relations. Nigeria as the biggest country, biggest economy in Africa, the most populous country in Africa, is not the most important trade partner of Thailand in Africa, let’s say, which should be able to become the most important trade partner of Thailand in Africa. So, you see, there’s big potential, high potential between the two countries to be able to develop their trade relationship.
Going back to the popular Thai rice. Can you give us the percentage of rice your country exports to the outside world, say annually?
(Long pause) I don’t have the figure now but let’s say in the last few years, we are no longer the number one rice exporter of the world but every year, I think we still export almost 10million tons of rice to other countries but unfortunately, I don’t have the accurate figure right now. And Nigeria is one of the most important importers of Thai rice in the world. But rice export is not the most important income earner of Thailand any more. Now, we export more industrial goods.
I like the idea of the project very much. I was very delighted to see that such project is being implemented here in Enugu State because this project addresses fundamental issue of human rights, food, education and healthcare. And the targeted people are the most vulnerable in the society - woman and children. So, I was very delighted to see the programe being implemented successfully here in
Enugu State with the cooperation of the Pan-African Community Initiative on Education and Health (PACIEH) who initiated this kind of idea to support the schools in the state.
Is there any way your government can assist in the programme? The idea of my visit to Enugu is to explore the possibility of how to help cooperation with PACIEH on this project.
So, when I go back to Abuja, I will communicate with the Ministry of Home Affairs in Bangkok about the possibility of cooperating with PACIEH on this project.
You were talking of sustainability of the project. How would you advise the coordinators in that direction?
In Thailand, we faced financial crisis in 1990 but still somehow, from the crisis, we have grown now. To sustain it, you have to rely on yourself. As long as you rely on someone else, you will not be sustained because that someone else may decide to withdraw his assistance. That is what we learnt from our financial crisis in 1990. Now, we try to rely on our own resources in Thailand. Don’t depend on external assistance, and I think that’s a very, very important factor in sustaining the programme. And that is what I would like to recommend to the stakeholders of this project; that the school feeding programme can be sustained if the community, the most important supporters of the school can rely on themselves. I mentioned earlier about agriculture.
Today, you saw the mothers of the children working in the kitchen to cook for their children in the school. So that’s the kind of self-sustenance I am talking about. So if they can have their own materials from their school garden, they can have chicken in their own poultry farm, then they might not need to rely on anyone or anything outside their relations to make the school meal programme sustainable. That is actually what I mean by the sustainability of the school meal programme.
Now let’s come to agriculture. Your country is widely known for rice production, what …
(Cuts in) Actually, Thailand is not, we are not a highly developed country. Rather we see ourselves as a middle income country but in the area of agriculture, we think we are one of the best in the world; so we are not second to anyone in the agricultural sector especially in the food processing industry. I mean this expertise that we have in agriculture, I think we can share it with our friends, especially here in Africa or West Africa.
Are there plans to transfer your agricultural knowledge or technology so that Nigeria can benefit from it? Yes. Nigeria and Thailand can have cooperation in the area of agriculture. Actually, we have to start to help some Nigerians training in Thailand in the agricultural sector. The Thai embassy in Abuja, for example, will help some experts from the ministry of agriculture from Niger State going to Bangkok to have a training on rice milling or we have some experts from the National Centre for Agriculture Mechanization in Nigeria going to Thailand to be trained in the area of mechanization in agriculture; that we have already done and I think we are going to do it in the future, too.
Do you think Nigeria can meet up with Thailand in terms of advancement in agriculture?
Why not? In agriculture, what do you need? You need people. You need arable land, good land, which you (Nigeria) have, and you need water. I think Nigeria has everything but somehow, your government has realized that Nigeria has neglected agriculture for some time but now the government has started to pay more attention to agriculture and I welcome that idea and Thailand is ready to cooperate with Nigeria in this area.
Currently, what kind of bilateral relationship does Thailand share with Nigeria?
Thailand and Nigeria have a very good bilateral relationship. Thailand has established the Thai embassy in Africa in Lagos. We established diplomatic relationship with Nigeria two years after Nigeria gained her independence. So, our relationship is more than 50 years old now but I think there are still quite some areas which we can improve on potentialities of our two countries to expand our trade relations. Nigeria as the biggest country, biggest economy in Africa, the most populous country in Africa, is not the most important trade partner of Thailand in Africa, let’s say, which should be able to become the most important trade partner of Thailand in Africa. So, you see, there’s big potential, high potential between the two countries to be able to develop their trade relationship.
Going back to the popular Thai rice. Can you give us the percentage of rice your country exports to the outside world, say annually?
(Long pause) I don’t have the figure now but let’s say in the last few years, we are no longer the number one rice exporter of the world but every year, I think we still export almost 10million tons of rice to other countries but unfortunately, I don’t have the accurate figure right now. And Nigeria is one of the most important importers of Thai rice in the world. But rice export is not the most important income earner of Thailand any more. Now, we export more industrial goods.
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