A Decade of Partnering for Sustainable Development

The Kenan Institute Asia grew out of the recognition that the challenges facing middle-level developing countries could be best addressed through free enterprise mechanisms and boundary-spanning partnerships. That vision, refined, expanded and implemented, has guided the Institute’s programs over the past decade.

In 1993 the Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill joined with Chulalongkorn University and the Brooker Group, a Thai business consultancy, to propose to the US Agency for International Development (USAID) an innovative plan for addressing key development issues in public health, education, environment and business. The proposal for a program to be called the U.S.-Thailand Development Partnership (USTDP) included the development of an institute to provide a mechanism for continuing development collaboration after the end of the USAID bilateral program.

The founding of the Institute Thailand’s leading statesman, former Prime Minister Anand Panyarachun, feeling that it was time for Thailand to move away from a donor-client relationship with the United States, agreed to serve as chairman of the new institute and brought with him to the board of trustees well-respected business people, government leaders and academics. The new institute was formally registered as a Thai non-profit development foundation on February 13, 1996.

The Thai government, through the Department of Technical and Economic Cooperation (DTEC), and the U.S. government, through USAID, agreed to invest in an endowment for the new Institute. Under the leadership of Frank and Owen Kenan, the William R. Kenan Jr. Charitable Trust and the Frank Hawkins Kenan Fund matched the funds put up by each of the governments.

The new Institute continued USTDP activities, fostering partnerships between U.S. and Thai organizations in key areas of development. Among them were successful efforts to recycle steel slag, produce a low-cost HIV diagnostic kit, design a waste water treatment plant for the city of Haadyai and generate electricity from landfill gas and discarded rice husks. Numerous training projects built capacity in public health, environmental management, municipal management and information technology.

Under the Partnership program, USAID and KIAsia provided more than $2 million for 151 environmental, health, infrastructure planning and human resource training activities. These activities were co-funded by more than $9.5 million in private and Thai government cost share.

American Corporations for Thailand (ACT)  Soon after the Institute was established, the 1997 financial crisis hit the region. The Institute responded by working with major U.S. companies in Thailand to provide retraining for those left unemployed by the crisis. Khun Anand and former US Secretary of State Dr. Henry Kissinger co-chaired this effort, and together they attracted more than $1.8 million from donors led by Unocal and American International Group (AIG). Over the next six years, ACT funded more than 50 projects serving some 700 trainers and about 27,000 trainees with an estimated 2 million hours of training, helping a high percentage of them to find new jobs.

Accelerating Economic Recovery in Asia In 1999, the U.S. government provided funds to help the affected countries under a program called Accelerating Economic Recovery in Asia (AERA). In Thailand, USAID implemented most of the program through the Kenan Institute Asia. Over the next seven years, the Institute undertook a wide variety of activities to both help recovery and support economic reforms. Although varied, the AERA projects all focused on goals that Thailand had already set for itself and supported Thai institutions working in those areas. Many contributed their own funds to projects that were built on the basis of partnership between Thai and American organizations.

Activities carried out by the Institute included:

1. Customized banking training for some 2,000 managers in risk management, credit analysis and internal control at each of the Thai-owned banks and a distance education program for more than 18,000 officers at government-owned banks.
   
   
2. Building links between U.S. and Thai organizations that supported better business practices, resulting in the formation of more than 30 partnerships. These partnerships brought higher standards of accounting, dispute resolution, bankruptcy adjudication, auditing and ethics to Thailand.
   
   
3. Business consulting and training assistance to more than 300 small and medium-sized companies and localized training programs in business planning, business incubation and entrepreneurship.
   
   
4. Community-based mechanisms to prevent the spread of multi-drug resistant malaria in deprived border areas, contributing to a dramatic reduction in malaria.
   
   
5. Training for secondary school teachers on using information technology to raise the quality of their teaching.
   
   
6. A program of research and training to assist company executives to better implement corporate social responsibilities.

Tsunami Recovery Action Initiative In 2005, the Institute, with funding from the William R. Kenan Charitable Trust, began a three-year program focused on the sustainable recovery and development of the area of southern Thailand affected by the devastating tsunami that struck Dec. 26, 2004. This program, called the Tsunami Recovery Action Initiative (TRAI), includes work with the business sector, schools and community organizations to create better livelihoods for the people of the area based on high-end, sustainable tourism. Recognizing the importance of effective education in this development process, Kenan is implementing a three-year project to strengthen science education with funding support from MSD (Thailand) and the development of community IT learning centers supported by Microsoft.

Recent Developments In 2006 the Institute honored Khun Anand for a decade of service and the Board of Trustees elected him Honorary Chairman. The Board selected Ambassador Nitya Pibulsonggram as Chairman of the Board and the Executive Committee. After only seven months as chairman, Khun Nitya was selected to serve as Minister of Foreign Affairs of the interim Thai government. He therefore stepped down as chairman for the period of his service in the cabinet.

Earlier in 2006, the Institute launched new programs building capacities for trade in Southeast Asia funded by USAID, designing small business incubators for Laos and Cambodia funded by the World Bank and helping entrepreneurs develop franchising operations in the region funded by the Thai government. To reduce the threat of Avian Influenza in the region, Kenan began programs providing information and protection mechanisms for schools and communities with support from USAID and UNICEF.