More aid for Mekong basin

AUSTRALIA, Germany, and Switzerland will provide nearly US$13 mil (RM54mil) in funding to the Mekong River Commission (MRC) to respond to pressing challenges while safeguarding its ecological function and improving people’s livelihoods.

The contribution aims to assist Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam, and follows a recent wave of Development Partners funding the MRC, as the Commission begins its Strategic Plan 2021-2025 under a new direction to overcome multiple threats to the basin.

“This support is timely and crucial to the MRC in implementing activities that balance the demands of economic development, social improvement, and protection of the environment,” MRC Secretariat CEO Dr An Pich Hatda said on the sidelines of a signing ceremony during the Informal Development Partners Meeting in Vientiane.

Under the new Strategic Plan, the MRC will ensure new national power generation plans consider the full range of viable generation sources, including water, food and energy, as well as the complementary use of wind and solar energy.

The MRC will also explore how the operations of water infrastructures throughout the basin should be coordinated to maximise their benefits and limit adverse environmental impacts on the Mekong mainstream and people.

It will continue to foster regional dialogue among basin countries, and deepen its engagement with China as well as all other partners throughout Asean and the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation, for the benefit of all Mekong constituents.

The new commitment was signed by Dr An and three development partners – Australia’s ambassador to Laos Paul Kelly, Germany’s envoy to Laos Jens Lutkenherm, and Jean-Francois Cuenod, Regional Director of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation.

Australia is providing A$5.1mil (RM16mil) in additional technical support on other key areas, including the MRC Flood and Drought Management Centre, and the reinvigoration of MRC data and information systems.

With a German contribution of €3mil (RM14.8mil) in support of the new plan, funding would be dispersed over three years beginning 2022, with US$1.2mil (RM4.9mil) allocated to the MRC’s core funding mechanism, and the balance allotted to the MRC–GIZ Cooperation Programme for technical support. — The Vientiane Times/ANN