The high priests at the Thailand Development Research Institute seem to have woken up to the economic growth trickle-down-effect fallacy that has long been a source of nightmares for Thai villagers. Or have they?

At a conference at the weekend, the TDRI announced that state development policies have widened the income gap and have failed to reach the poorest of the poor, who are growing in number. This think-tank has long been an ardent advocate of mainstream economic development irregardless of the catastrophe wrought upon small people and the environment. Why the sudden interest in the poor? Is it compassion, sympathy or something else entirely?

It's important to understand where the TDRI is coming from because of its influence on public policy at a time when two development streams _ globalism and localism _ are clashing.

Worsening poverty resulting from economic development with an urban bias has created widespread discontent. Hence the growth of grassroots and civil society movements, their demands for local empowerment, and their wariness of policies that would open up the country further to unfettered economic globalisation. This phenomenon is not exclusive to Thailand. Worldwide resentment culminated in the Seattle riots which forced such powerful organisations as the World Trade Organisation and World Bank to rethink their globalisation rush. How to pacify developing nations and citizen groups while continuing to push for the opening up of their economies has since become their top agenda.

The World Bank's strategy is made clear in its World Development Report 2000/2001. It compromises by integrating localism talks _ what with people's empowerment, local decision-making, safety nets, debt relief and what not _ but it still insists on globalisation. Although avoiding the word globalisation, the bank asserts that "the forces of global integration and technological advance can and must be harnessed to serve the interests of poor people''. The Bank also stresses that economic growth is essential for reducing poverty. To create ``inclusive growth'', it proposes several anti-poverty strategies: promoting opportunity, facilitating empowerment, enhancing security and making markets work better for the poor.

Similarly, the TDRI insists on the need to spur economic growth to fight poverty in Thailand. Interestingly, its other anti-poverty strategies are exactly the same as those of the World Bank.

What's going on here?

The TDRI may forget that Thailand's poor are no longer fearful folk who allow "masters'' to think for them. They know exactly what they want. Among their demands: stop big projects that destroy nature and people's livelihoods; implement land and taxation reform; revamp the state budget system to empower local communities; allow communities to manage local natural resources, be they rivers, forests, land or minerals; get the people's approval first for every project that affects their lives; return schools to the community; place development in line with justice and morality; forget economic growth and globalisation talks, help the villagers be self-sufficient first.

Thai villagers have come a long way. Sadly, the TDRI, judging from recent papers, is still struggling with a definition and measurement of poverty. No, the poor no longer want to be studied. They want their voices heard. They do not want the TDRI using them to learn about poverty nor to see the TDRI as a medium for the World Bank's globalisation message.

What they want is to know where the think-tank stands when such schemes as farm water pricing and the Hin Krud-Bo Nok power plants threaten to plunge more villagers into poverty. For this is the only way to know if the TDRI stands with the poor or is just a research paper production facility.

- Sanitsuda Ekachai is Assistant Editor, Bangkok Post.