Bangkok--20 Feb--PDA
The Global Journal (GLOBAL) has announced its international ranking of The Top 100 Best NGOs in the World. Thailand’s Population and Community Development Association (PDA) ranked 39th due to its nearly four-decade commitment in rural development, poverty eradication, education, and public health. PDA is the only Thai non-governmental organization (NGO) on this list, and one of only three in Southeast Asia.
The selection methodology involved the compilation of an extensive list of 1,000 possible NGOs followed by 2 group reviews. At each stage, a number of qualitative measured metrics were used to include innovation, effectiveness, impact, efficiency & value for money, transparency & accountability, sustainability, strategic & financial management, and peer review.
Mr. Mechai Viravaidya, Founder and Chairman of PDA, said, “It’s an honor for PDA to be included on this international list. We would like to thank the publication for this gesture. While PDA has been formally recognized among the world’s top NGOs in public health (family planning and HIV/AIDS prevention), its next challenge is to be among the world leading NGOs in poverty eradication and rural education for the underprivileged.”
The Population and Community Development Association
สมาคมพัฒนาประชากรและชุมชน
The Population and Community Development Association (PDA) was founded in 1974 as a non-governmental organization with the initial aim to complement the efforts of the Thai Government in promoting family planning in Thailand, especially in areas where knowledge and access to services were scarce. Utilizing a participatory, community-based approach, PDA recruited and trained residents of villages and urban neighborhoods to provide information on family planning, including the supervised, non-medical distribution of oral contraceptives. This distribution network covered more than one-third of the country, thus contributing significantly to the decrease in the annual population growth rate from 3.3% in the mid-1970s to 0.6% in 2005. During the same period, the number of children per family fell from 7 to under two.
After addressing immediate family planning needs in Thailand, PDA expanded its activities to include primary health care, HIV/AIDS education and prevention, water resource development and sanitation, income-generation, environmental conservation, promotion of small-scale rural enterprise programs, gender equality, youth development, and democracy promotion. Most recently, PDA has aggressively approached the problem of rural poverty by empowering the poor through the Village Development Partnership, which establishes a community-owned Village Development Bank for the purpose of microcredit.
Today, PDA is one of Thailand's leading and most diversified NGOs. PDA has 18 regional development centers and branch offices located across 15 provinces in rural Thailand. It also manages operation of the Mechai Pattana School, which provides revolutionary secondary education for the underprivileged in Buriram province.
PDA has pioneered sustainable grassroots endeavors, marked by extensive villager involvement not only as beneficiaries, but also as partners, planners, managers, and leaders. PDA’s programs are based on the belief that local people are best suited to be an equal partner in shaping and sustaining their own development. 37 years of PDA’s involvement has created significant change in the following areas:
- Health, AIDS & Family Planning
- Income Generation & Poverty Reduction
- Rural Microcredit
- Water & Environmental
- Youth as Agents of Change Today and Leaders of Tomorrow
- Education & Nutrition
- Corporate Social Responsibility - The Village Development Partnership
- Emergency Relief Services (CBERS)
- NGO Sustainability
- Human Rights Promotion
PDA and its leaders have been recognized internationally by various organizations for their work in making lasting, systemic changes in Thailand and Southeast Asia. Two of the programs have been recognized as Best Practices by UNAIDS. The PBS television special, “Rx for Survival”, highlighted PDA’s pioneering successes in family planning and HIV/AIDS prevention, as well as in the area of changing attitudes and behavior towards delivering services to the rural poor. Representatives of organizations from nearly fifty countries have come to Thailand to learn about PDA’s successes through PDA’s international training arm. Another acknowledgement of PDA’s key contributions came from the World Bank, in November 2005, which estimated that seven million lives were saved from HIV/AIDS through the intensive public education and prevention program designed and introduced to the public through PDA. PDA's Chairman, Mechai Viravaidya, was awarded the Gates Award for Global Health in 2007 for the pioneering work in HIV/AIDS prevention, and the organization was awarded the 2008 Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship.
The Global Journal (Geneva & New York) portrays a fresh look at global governance, issues & players. It is an online journal, ‘the first’ witness to focus on what will come out from political, economical, academic, technological and cultural globalization.
Sources:
http://theglobaljournal.net/top100NGOs/
http://theglobaljournal.net/photo/full_view/575/
http://theglobaljournal.net/photo/full_view/589/
http://www.theglobaljournal.ch/
http://www.ashoka.org/story/global-journal-ranks-top-100-best-ngos-2012