The importance of partnerships
The role of the Mekong River Commission (MRC) is to ensure that the development of the Mekong Basin’s water and related resources contributes to accelerated economic development which is widely dispersed, sustainable, and in accordance with the basin vision and the 1995 Mekong Agreement.
This role must however be executed under a broad development agenda where the MRC does its part to support increased economic integration, including promoting an enhanced environment for intra-regional trade and investment. But it cannot do this alone.
Partnerships at all levels are a vital element to the MRC's work, and in order to achieve its strategic goals, the MRC has forged effective links with other regional economic cooperation initiatives.
These initiatives include the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), the Greater Mekong Sub-Region Economic Cooperation Programme (GMS), the emerging World Bank Mekong Water Resources Assistance Programme (MWRAP), The Ayeyawady-Chao Phraya- Mekong Economic Cooperation Strategy (ACMECS) and Thailand’s Neighbouring Countries Economic Development Cooperation Fund (NECF).
Strategic partnerships can help to clarify appropriate roles and complementarities of these initiatives resulting in synergies for a coherent development process, accelerated economic growth and poverty alleviation.
The World Bank and the Asian Development Bank
The MRC has a long standing relationship with the World Bank, which has implemented an important Global Environment Facility-funded water utilisation project for the past five years.
Recently the World Bank and the MRC formed another partnership. In 2005 the World Bank together with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) finalised its Mekong Water Resources Assistance Strategy. The MRCS provided the technical expertise to help formulate the strategy using its powerful Decision Support Framework (DSF) modelling tool and the skills of its modellers to produce a range of scenarios involving different levels of development within the basin.
This strategy provides for a “big picture” of the region and aims to make the bank's waterrelated assistance more effective. It identifies strategic sub-regional studies/projects (known as “priority actions for dialogue and investment”) in which the MRC will be associated as a partner.
Over the course of this joint planning exercise the MRC Secretariat modelling team, in conjunction with the World Bank, developed several development scenarios which model the whole basin. These take into account different levels of development in hydropower and irrigation and enable basin planners to predict changes in the river regime.
The World Bank and ADB are now working with MRCS to develop this strategy into the Mekong Water Resources Assistance Programme (MWRAP) that provides a framework for the implementation of those priority actions. MWRAP is being prepared in consultation with member governments, donors and civil society.
The World Bank and ADB will now take an interest in assisting the countries separately, as well as the MRCS, with integrated water resources management at a basin scale and with planning for meaningful sustainable developments. Following consultations with country governments, the bank has jointly identified a number of transboundary activities in which MRC will cooperate.
Three cross-border/bi- or tri-lateral project packages of sub-regional/catchment scale areas were identified as offering opportunities:
- The sub-basins of the Sesan-Srepok-Sekong shared by Cambodia, Lao PDR and Vietnam.
- The region along the Mekong shared by Thailand and Lao PDR
- The flood/navigation/agriculture nexus in the delta, shared by Viet Nam and Cambodia.
Because the investment banks want to take a basin-wide view of development they will pursue a planned list of mutually complementary projects/investments in which the banks as well as bilateral donors are involved. MRC will use its knowledge base to support basin-wide projects as well as national projects which have significant transboundary implications.
Greater Mekong Subregion
The GMS Economic Cooperation Programme, initiated in 1992 with the assistance of the ADB, aims to facilitate sustainable economic growth and to improve the standard of living of the people in the sub-region. There are nine key sectors for GMS activities: agriculture, energy, environment, human resource development, investment, telecommunications, tourism, trade, and transport.
The MRC’s Flood Management and Mitigation Programme is a major component of the GMS flagship Flood Control and Water Resources Management Programme. Cooperation is already quite advanced and can point the way toward further activities in other areas.
Transport sector programmes and their requirements for multi-modal linkages including river transport could be coordinated between the MRC’s Navigation Programme and the GMS. Another area with complementarities for further enhancement is with the land use policy component and the MRC's Watershed Management programme component.
The Strategic Environment Framework Programme also offers room for enhanced cooperation. Objectives for this programme include support to GMS countries in order to build effective institutions for improved governance of natural resources and the need to strengthen the sub-regional environmental information and monitoring systems. Active involvement of MRC in GMS will increase cooperation with China and Myanmar, particularly to allow integrated water resources management of the whole basin.
ASEAN
MRC member states Cambodia, Lao PDR, Thailand and Viet Nam are also members of ASEAN. The MRC's role and accomplishments in promoting regional cooperation is a key area where MRC aims to work with ASEAN In addition to a stronger link with broader economic development and cooperation initiatives, this type of regional recognition can build the trust and political will to reach acceptable solutions to difficult, complex issues.
ACMECS
The objectives of this new initiative are to bridge the economic gap among the four countries, and to promote prosperity in the sub-region in a sustainable manner. Leaders of Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar and Thailand have agreed on five priority areas of cooperation, and endorsed the “Economic Cooperation Strategy Plan of Action,” under which 46 common projects and 224 bilateral projects were listed for implementation over the next 10 years.
Viet Nam has now also joined the group. The MRC is working with its member countries to help them gain the best outputs from this association.
NECF
The Thai NECF makes available concessional loans for socio-economic infrastructure development projects and works with neighbouring country government agencies, state enterprises and state-owned financial institutions.
Within this framework MRC recently collaborated with Thailand's Ministry of Finance to help it identify a project it could support on the Nam Souang in Lao PDR. In this case the Thai Government intends to secure funds for the development of the rehabilitation of the Nam Souang Irrigation project, and will be working with the Lao Department of Irrigation.
The MRCS will act as a cooperating agency to support the partnership with Line Agencies and provide experts in the fields of hydrology, irrigation, GIS, agronomy, environment and public relations.
Private Sector
The MRC is keen to work with the private sector where development aims match those of its programme work. One example of this is in Lao PDR where the MRC's new Navigation Programme has been involved in initial investigations into uses of the Mekong River as a means to transport goods in and out of Lao PDR supporting the Government in its cooperation with a foreign gold mining concern.
As an international river basin organisation, the MRC can provide a basin-wide dimension in planning and working with partners is an important way it can assist the basin’s people.
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