The Mae Fah Luang Model
towards Sustainable Development
of the Global Community
From the Science of the King to the Mae Fah Luang model,
shared by mother to son, and by son to mother, towards sus-
tainable rural development, and today onwards with pride to
the global community.
A total of 193 countries, together with the
United Nations, set the Sustainable Development
Goals (SDGs) 2016-2031, which are an extension
of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
which will end in 2015. The guidelines of these
development goals correspond with those of HRH
the Princess Mother, and what she introduced
28 years ago in the Doi Tung Development Pro-
ject, under the auspices of the Mae Fah Luang
Foundation Under Royal Patronage (MFLF). The
experiences learned from from the Doi Tung De-
velopment Project were compiled into a guideline
for sustainable development for better quality of
life, or the “Mae Fah Luang Manual” that sets
a systematic procedure for survival, sufficient
living, and sustainable well-being. His Majesty
the King’s principles of Sufficiency Economy
were also incorporated into the National Agenda
under the present government.
These are some of the things that bring pride
to M.R. Disnadda Diskul, Chairman of the Board
of the Mae Fah Luang Foundation, and all his
staff. M.R. Disnadda recounted the steps leading
to this success, to the point where the MFLF has
been invited to help with sustainable alternative
livelihood development programmes in numerous
countries.
“Our first international venture was in 2002,
when the British government invited the MFLF
to speak in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, in
the country’s first drug conference. The speech
resulted in Mr. Antonio Maria Costa, Executive
Director of the United Nations Office on Drugs
and Crime (UNODC), who was in charge of global
issues on drugs and crime, approaching us to
go and work with him. I said to him, ‘You’ve only
heard me speak, I think you should come and see
what we’ve done.’ I made my speech in July, and
four months later, he was in Thailand. I took him
up to Doi Tung, and explained everything to him.
When he had seen everything, he admitted that
this was a project like no other in the world. This
was the first time that we made an impression in
the international circle.
“This happened at approximately the same
time that Gen. Khin Nyunt, Senior Gen. Than
Shwe, and Gen. Maung Aye, top ranking members
of the Burmese ruling junta, visited Doi Tung
to ask us to expand the project over the border
into Burmese territory. They came in 2000, and
by 2002, we were in Myanmar to implement a
Sustainable Alternative Livelihood Develop-
ment programme at Yong Kha village, Shan
State. In 2006, MFLF received funding from the
Belgian government to implement a livestock
project and community enterprise development
programme in Balkh, Afghanistan. Next, the
Danish government provided funding for MFLF
to continue its project there. The project was
completed in 2012, by which time MFLF had
transferred the project to the local commu-
nity and the Afghan government through the
Ministry of Rural Reform and Development
(MRRD). MFLF’s Afghan manager was ap-
pointed as the manager of the Afghan Rural
Enterprise Development Programme under the
MRRD, operating under the MFLF’s guideline
for community enterprise development.
That same year, MFLF was approached
by UNODC and the Indonesian government to
implement Sustainable Alternative Livelihood
Development in Aceh, Indonesia.
“We implemented similar programmes in
Myanmar, Aceh and Afghanistan, transferring
the projects to the local communities to operate,
as a model project that could be adapted in
other communities of the respective countries
as well. When these projects welcomed visitors
on study tours, it also made MFLF more widely
known, because we had succeeded with the
cooperation of the local communities, with min-
imum investment.”
Then in 2011, MFLF launched the Ye-
nanchaung Project in Magway, Myanmar, fol-
lowed by projects in Tachileik and Mong Hsat
Township in Myanmar’s Shan State, in 2012.
“What we did was to introduce the Science of
the King and His Majesty’s principles, and adapt
them to each locale. In Myanmar and Afghanistan,
we couldn’t understand a word they said, but we had
no problem communicating. If we wanted a chicken,
we’d draw a chicken. If we wanted a spade, we’d
draw a spade. If we are sincere, they will sense it,
and work with us.”
We went in to change their lifestyle, and
taught them to eat everything they grew, and grow
everything they ate. More importantly, we found
them sources of water, offered them an alternative
livelihood. In Afghanistan, we worked with goats
and sheep, creating goat and sheep