Salzburg Global Fellow Patporn (Aor) Phoothong examines what a sudden suspension of U.S. funds reveals about the need to reform Thailand's civil society
This article was written by Salzburg Global Fellow Patporn (Aor) Phoothong, who has participated in the Asia Peace Innovators Forum. Thanks to the generous support of the Nippon Foundation, she also attended Salzburg Global sessions on "Polarization and Violent Threats to Democratic Systems: Assessing the Threats and What We Can do About Them" and "Crossing the Pacific: The Asian American Experience in U.S. Society and Discourse" in September 2024.
A Freeze in Funding
In the early morning of January 27, 2025, I opened an email titled “Award Suspension Notice” from a USAID subcontractor. Three hours later - mid interview for an evaluation - another arrived: “Notice of Suspension.” I stopped the interview on the spot. Within hours, I was effectively unemployed. The shock forced a hard look at how we fund and organize public interest work in Thailand - and what must change so a single email cannot halt help.
The pause and re-prioritization of U.S. funds sent ripples from Mae Sot, the Thai-Myanmar border town to Bangkok. Programs for refugees, legal aid, independent media, democratization, climate action, peacebuilding, and community health stalled or shrank. For civil society organizations (CSOs) reliant on a few external pipelines, the shock surfaced old problems: short project cycles, thin reserves, regulatory pressure, shifting priorities, and communication that sometimes misses everyday concerns.
Measuring Movement Toward Progress
Progress takes time, but we can still measure movement. Democratization and peacebuilding are slow burn journeys; institutions reform in steps and trust accumulates slowly. Ask instead: “Given the time and money invested, what has moved - and for whom?” Track proximate outcomes people feel: disputes mediated; budget data used; legal remedies delivered; dialogues that continue after grants. Across a portfolio, aim for quick wins, system fixes, and longer term shifts - and report these interim returns clearly to strengthen relevance and small donor support.
Close the gap with communities - and step out of echo chambers. Thailand’s public sphere is divided, and CSOs can end up speaking mostly to peers and donors. Meanwhile, households worry about debt, housing, safety, work protections, documentation, flooding, infrastructure, and petty corruption. Too much messaging travels in donor language on activist channels, not the ones people use like LINE, community radio, temple and mosque announcements, or in local registers. Practical fixes: co-design priorities; budget for translation; run listening clinics; test messages outside the bubble; recruit community editors; track “bridging reach.”
Civic Space Under Pressure
Monitoring chills the spaces where dialogue is most needed. In the Deep South - Pattani, Yala, Narathiwat, and parts of Songkhla - where even “self determination” can trigger scrutiny, peace and rights activities are closely watched. Even without withdrawing the special security laws, the combination of tight registration, participant list requests, intrusive audits, unannounced visits, venue cancellations, and wide discretion create a climate of caution. Humanitarian providers often cope while rights and peace groups self censor by renaming dialogues, shrinking meetings, or moving to private spaces. Transparency and proportionate reporting are necessary, but open-ended monitoring chills association and deters cross-community work.
Funding trends have shifted. Grants are shorter, portfolios more regional, intermediaries more common, compliance heavier, and reimbursements slower, which creates cash flow gaps. Substantively, many calls now foreground climate change, AI and digital governance, and business and human rights. This does not erase democracy or peacebuilding, but it reframes them: proposals linking civic work to climate resilience, digital integrity, or responsible supply chains fare better. The risk is mission drift; we should translate goals without bending the mission.
International aid has not vanished but rather changed shape. As an upper middle income country with an elected government, Thailand sits above emergency triage. Donors direct more funds to lower income or crisis settings. What remains is targeted (regional or thematic windows) and conditional (cost share, stronger evidence, reimbursement) funding. Because our context is comparatively stable, Thailand can still be a testing ground for conflict sensitive development in the Deep South, digital governance and rights, BHR in supply chains, cross border protection, and climate adaptation - if we plan accordingly.
Reliance on foreign aid and a diversification gap magnify fragility. Many CSOs excel at winning and managing foreign grants, but fewer build domestic revenue legs. Exposure to single donor shocks and thin reserves follows. Diversification is not only about money; it strengthens accountability and reduces vulnerability from project budgets that exclude operating costs, leaving staff and volunteers precarious. Domestic public funds, mainly via ministries and the Thai Health Promotion Foundation, do real good in health and safety, but seldom back peace, rights, or participation, and often cap core operating costs. Talent is hard to retain, compliance suffers, and structural change work withers.
What Needs Redesign - And What Endured
This was not a collapse of civic effort; it exposed a support system needing re-engineering: grants that fund activities but not organizing capacity, competitive calls that fragment efforts, audits and low indirects that leave no cushion, oversight without safeguards, communication stuck in echo chambers, and diversification shortfalls. Yet civic energy endured: mutual aid groups, youth collectives, women’s organizations, disability advocates, and local volunteers kept going through solidarity funds and in kind support. The leadership is there and now the scaffolding must catch up.
From Diagnosis to Design: Seven Moves We Can Start Now
- Relevance: Make casework, rapid legal response, mediation, and participatory budgeting pilots non negotiable. Track problems solved and policy/practice changes.
- Bridge beyond echo chambers: Co-design priorities, fund translation and field time, use local channels, and recruit community editors.
- Protect space while engaging rules: Form a legal taskforce for clear scope, tiered reporting, and independent appeals. Publish plain language guides.
- Redesign financing: Build a domestic base (membership, monthly giving, independence safe matches). Create a Thai-managed pooled fund for flexible core support and adopt a reserve policy.
- Shift Monitoring, Evalution, and Learning (MEL) to learning: Evaluate fewer indicators with more reflection. Use contribution analysis and case tracking.
- Pool infrastructure for hard problems: Utilize strategic litigation, rapid bail/anti-strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPP), secure communications, safe convening beyond Bangkok, and emergency bridge finance.
- Open domestic windows for peace and rights: Pilot bounded, transparent participation windows with ministries and Thai public funds.
Positioning with international partners completes the picture. When donors return or re-prioritize, meet them with confidence. Accept catalytic funds, but insist on flexible core support, realistic indirect cost rates, multi-year terms, and explicit investment in domestic fundraising capacity. Prefer diversified consortia over single donor dependence, and treat every grant as a bridge to a stronger Thai base, never a substitute for it.
The morning those emails about my suspension arrived was a jolt - and a lesson. It showed that the outcomes Thailand needs - democratization people can feel, peacebuilding that reduces harm, and rights that protect everyday dignity - depend on choices within reach. These include visible wins while the long game unfolds, messages in local languages on local channels, rules that are clear and proportionate, and financing that covers operations, builds reserves, and diversifies beyond a single donor. If we pair domestic anchors with catalytic aid, the next pause will not decide whether help reaches border areas, provinces, or Bangkok.
The shock has passed and the redesign starts now.
Patporn (Aor) Phoothong is a professional researcher with over ten years of working experience in the museum and archives in Thailand, East Asia and Balkan. She has extensive experience designing studies, performing field work, and networking and collaborating with academic institutes, scholars, organizations and relevant organizations to promote outreach initiatives and civic education. Her current research is a feasibility study for the establishment of a peace museum connected to the deep south of Thailand. She co-founded an initiative to establish a 6 October 1976 Massacre Museum. Aor is also a working team member for the Documentation of October 6, archives on the Thammasat University massacre on October 6, 1976.
Explore our digital publication, which includes more coverage from the Salzburg Global American Studies session on “Crossing the Pacific: The Asian American Experience in U.S. Society and Discourse”.
