Abstract:
The objectives of this research were 1) to study the sustainable community development in the Upper Mekong Region 2) to study the factors affecting the sustainable community development in the Upper Mekong Region and 3) to propose the guidelines for improving the factors affecting the sustainable community development in the Upper Mekong Region. This research was conducted by mixed methods of quantitative and qualitative research. The quantitative research used the samples of 250 respondents from the population of 600 persons which the samples size was calculated by Taro Yamanes formula and selected by simple random sampling from civil servants who were the head of Office and head of Governing in Loei and Nongkhai province. The tool for data collection was a rating scale questionnaire and data were analyzed by percentage, mean and standard deviation and hypotheses testing were used by correlation coefficient and multiple regression analysis. The qualitative research was conducted by using in-depth interviewing 10 key informants from civil servants who were the head of Office and head of Governing in Loei and Nongkhai provinces which did not the samples of quantitative research. The participants were selected by purposive sampling and data were analyzed by content analysis and interpretation. The research findings were as follows: 1.The sustainable community development in the Upper Mekong Region in overall had a managerial level at high level. When considered in each aspect and ranked from the highest mean to the lowest mean were the aspect of self-reliance, the aspect of quality of life, the aspect of sufficiency and the aspect of competitive capacities, respectively. 2.The factors affecting the sustainable community development in the Upper Mekong Region which ranked from the highest to the lowest were the factors of area characteristics in community, the factor of management within community and the factor of cooperation within community, respectively. These factors correlated significantly at a level of .05 and could explained the sustainable community development at 57.80 per cent (R2 = 0.578). 3.The proposed guidelines for improving the factors affecting the sustainable community development in the Upper Mekong Region composed of the 4 important practices comprising (1) the quality of life; the community recognized the rules and regulations of own community, should formulated the strategic planning and direction for development. It should shared the idea and opinions and promoted the knowledge and understanding in occupations for increasing income. The balance of coexistence was mobilized between human and nature by careful livelihood. The community provided the clean food good taste principle (2) the self- reliance of community; the people in community able to help each other and must established the community commission for cooperation in the Upper Mekong Region. Moreover, constructed the experienced learning from the successful persons especially promoted the activities of communities for conservation and recovery of watershed forest area and not only reallocated the land holding for farmers landlessness but also the community right to manage their water resources by developing the medium and small reservoirs for farming (3) the sufficiency; the community practiced according to the philosophy of sufficiency economy comprising the moderate means, the reasons and the own immunity under the conditions of knowledge and moral especially the integrity and (4) the competitive capacities; the community ready to confront the change in any situation and enhancing the knowledge which were able to compete in economic issues. Furthermore, each community should developed the diverse occupation and had prominently One Tambon One Product or OTOP. The public sector and community should promoted the tourism places and OTOP for increasing the potential towards the global market.