On 30 September - 1 October 2024, Ms. Chidchanok Malayawong, Director of Development Promotion and Coordination Division, Thailand International Cooperation Agency (TICA), representative of Director-General of TICA, attended the Roundtable Meeting among Development Cooperation Departments and Agencies of Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand from ASEAN and Japan organized by Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) at JICA Headquarters, Tokyo, Japan.

Under the theme “Reflecting “Our Voice” to Global Development Cooperation”, the purpose of this roundtable meeting was to strengthen cooperation among development cooperation agencies in ASEAN and Japan as well as to share and exchange information and knowledge among the agencies including expand development cooperation to other regions.

The meeting agreed to enhance cooperation in human resource development in emerging challenges such as climate change. Furthermore, raising awareness of development cooperation in the general public through social media and promoting people-to-people connectivity of the participating countries were discussed.

On this occasion, the Director had a bilateral meeting with Mr. SUGITA Shigehiko, Director of Southeast Asia Division 4 (Thailand and Myanmar), Southeast Asia and Pacific Department, JICA, to discuss ways for the evaluation of the Third Country Training Programme (TCTP) and development cooperation projects under the Science and Technology Research Partnership for Sustainable Development (SATREPS) between Thailand and Japan.  Increasing numbers of Thai volunteers under the Friend From Thailand (FFT) Volunteer Programme to Japan in the future was also raised by JICA side.