Although this group of NPOs faced least difficulties compared to other types of NPOs during the time Thailand was under dictatorial rule by the military in the 1960s and 1970s, recently the government budget to support them was severely cut as they were lumped with other types of NPOs which campaigned against certain government policies and programmes.
The first NPOs considered to be "development (oriented) NPOs" is Foundation for Thailand Rural Reconstruction Movement under Royal Patronage (TRRM). It was established in 1967 by Dr. Puey Ungphakorn, the then Governor of the Bank of Thailand, to apply the rural reconstruction concept as promoted by Dr. James C. Yen similar to other sister organizations in Asia, such as PRRM in the Philippines.
Development work then began to grow importantly because many persons who had gone to work with disadvantaged people came to conclusion that welfare work, that normally focus on relieving immediate problems faced by the people, did not really address problems at their root causes and may not benefit the people in long term. Development NPOs then emerged en mass in the early 1980s as the alternative for "progressive people" who, on one hand, saw no hope in the capitalist state and, on the other hand, turned away from the Communist Party of Thailand (CPT) found to contain so many flaws.
In their early years, NPOs, particular those working in rural areas similar to TRRM, were dominated by the concept of "integrated rural development" where all problems were considered related and development program's needed to include agricultural, economic, health, educational and other related activities. They began to focus on specific issues, such as environment management, alternative agriculture and HIV/AIDS, only in the 90S. As for urban-based development NPOs, they have divided themselves to focus on specific issues or work for specific groups or sectors of people from the beginning. For example, the 1980s saw emergence of NPOs working for children, women, slum dwellers and industrial workers. They then were joined by NPOs working on HIV/AIDS in the 1990s.
Despite having a main approach that could categorize them into one of these three groups, most development NPOs have some kinds of welfare activities and since the early 1990s have shifted towards being defenders of people's rights in one way or another.11 At the same time, they reached a conclusion that to solve problems faced by local people and communities, it was not enough anymore to work only at community level as most of them used to in the 1970s and 1980s. The belief that "solutions are in the villages" is not true anymore. They have to do policy advocacy and public campaign. This realization made them shift from spending most times working in the community to do more coordinating, facilitating and capacity building work. They also cooperate with each other into issue or sector based networks while organizing and empowering the grassroots people to form more organizations and networks as well. Finally, the 1990s saw Thai CSOs effectively linked with foreign and international CSOs and networks as well for more powerful advocacy and information exchanges.
