[{"bbox": [82, 131, 1147, 317], "category": "Text", "text": "Thailand continues to be a regional leader on environmental protection and circular economy initiatives. Furthermore, in 2020 Thailand has launched the BCG strategy (bio-economy, circular economy, green economy) which complements the Thailand 4.0 strategy. As the country enters the next phase of its development, it seeks to balance its economic recovery with environmental and social dimensions, notably by tackling the outstanding challenges on environment and human and labour rights. The Royal Thai Government recognises that gender equality and women empowerment are key aspects of Thailand's sustainable recovery, and the main priorities are well aligned to the GAP III."}, {"bbox": [82, 343, 1147, 611], "category": "Text", "text": "Thailand is **vulnerable to climate change**, frequent flash floods threaten the livelihood of millions of people living in the northeast of Thailand, and rising seawater is on the doorstep of Bangkok, which, because of its location in the middle of the delta, is sinking slowly. The National Climate Change Master Plan (2015–2050) is a key document, along with the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) roadmap on Mitigation 2021-2030) in steering Thailand's effort in addressing climate change. Thailand is home to significant natural resources and is a regional leader in the protection of these, investing more in its national parks than any other ASEAN Member State. Thailand has shown significant interests in investments linked to circular economy or Bio-Circular-Green economy (BCG), which has been given a place in the national planning process equal to that of Thailand 4.0, both policies considered as vehicles to modernise Thailand and escape the middle income trap. Investments in digital economy is an important part of both strategies."}, {"bbox": [82, 635, 1147, 849], "category": "Text", "text": "Thailand has been a **crossroad for migration** within South-East Asia for centuries and unsafe, irregular and unordered migration constitutes a major future challenge for Thailand. In less than a generation, Thailand has transitioned from being a net-sending to a net-receiving nation for labour migration. Migrant workers from neighbouring (and poorer) countries constitute the vast majority of Thailand's current population of migrants. Furthermore, a wide variety of other groups' residents within the country do not hold citizenship status, including stateless persons, asylum seekers and refugees. There are 3,005,376 registered migrant workers in Thailand, of which 1,291,722 or 43% are women, mainly from Cambodia, Lao PDR and Myanmar. Women migrant workers are generally employed in lower-skilled, lower-wage functions than men¹."}, {"bbox": [82, 874, 1147, 1089], "category": "Text", "text": "Key areas of joint interests include external aspects of the **European Green Deal**, in particular climate change, environment, oceans, urbanisation and responsible consumption/production, cooperation, exchanges and peer learning on **science, technology and innovation, digitalisation/digital transition** of their economies. Thailand is very keen to engage in these issues and a strengthened dialogue and cooperation could benefit both parties. As highlighted by international human rights organisations, The Government of Thailand has undertaken inclusive processes to develop a national action plan on business and human rights. There is a growing interest in and awareness of the business and human rights agenda and its importance in Thailand, especially among larger companies with exposure to global markets.²"}, {"bbox": [82, 1113, 1147, 1380], "category": "Text", "text": "Prosperity, inclusive growth and decent work, labour migration are key issues for the sustainable development of Thailand, increasingly characterised by inequality and increasing pockets of poverty. Finally, Thailand is a key partner in a number of multi-lateral fora including ASEAN as well as in connection to multilateral agreements and international conventions on labour rights, sustainable development and biodiversity. Thailand's **gender parity** scores have improved, from being ranked 79 in 2022 to 74 out of 146 countries in the World Economic Forum (WEF)'s Global Gender Gap Index 2023. Thailand made significant improvement on gender parity in the category of educational attainment with a score of 0.995 percentage points, ranked 61st up from 92nd in 2022. It also scored 0.772 percentage points in economic participation and opportunity, rising to 24th in the list. The scores in these two categories pushed the overall ranking up from 79th to 74th. However, in the category of political empowerment, Thailand scored only 0.101 percentage points, ranking it at 120th."}, {"bbox": [82, 1404, 1147, 1458], "category": "Text", "text": "Several human rights issues and challenges persist and human rights reforms should be promoted to be up to standards with international human rights treaties and commitments."}, {"bbox": [72, 1583, 532, 1609], "category": "Footnote", "text": "¹ https://asiapacific.unwomen.org/en/countries/thailand"}, {"bbox": [72, 1609, 1147, 1663], "category": "Footnote", "text": "² OHCRH, Human Rights Council, Report of the Working Group on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises, 2019"}, {"bbox": [1144, 1663, 1159, 1684], "category": "Page-footer", "text": "6"}]