Mekong - U.S. Partnership
Thailand Hosts Regional Meeting on Lower Mekong Initiative
Thailand's Ministry of Foreign Affairs is hosting the 7th Lower Mekong Initiative (LMI) Regional Working Group Meeting to discuss cooperation in several areas, aiming at moving toward the ASEAN integration at year-end.Outcomes of the two-day meeting hosted by the Foreign Affairs Ministry will be used to review a draft of the Master Plan of Action…
Mekong Countries Meet to Address Drivers of Deforestation
USAID LEAF and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations gathered representatives from Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam in Bangkok from January 20 to 21 to develop national action plans on drivers of deforestation and a decision support tool on forestry and climate change policy.Representatives from participating Mekong countries presented the results…
USAID Partners with Johns Hopkins University to Support Off-grid Solar in Cambodia
Over the past several months, USAID’s Private Financing Advisory Network-Asia (PFAN-Asia) has been collaborating with a team of four graduate school consultants from the Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) to research and develop a report, The Business Case For: Off- grid Solar in Cambodia.The purpose of this study is to identify…
Report Estimates Lower Mekong Basin Economies Risk $34 Billion/Year from Climate Change
The U.S. Agency for International Development's Mekong Adaptation and Resilience to Climate Change (USAID Mekong ARCC) project has just released a report entitled “Climate Change in the Lower Mekong Basin: An Analysis of Economic Values at Risk.”Authored by Senior Economist John Talberth of World Resources Institute, a USAID Mekong ARCC partner, the report estimates that…
Thailand to Host the 7th Lower Mekong Initiative (LMI) Regional Working Group Meeting
The Lower Mekong Initiative Regional Working Group Meeting will take place in Bangkok during 29-30 January 2015 with an emphasis on the cooperation on water, energy, and food issues.The Ministry of Foreign Affairs will host the 7th Lower Mekong Initiative (LMI) Regional Working Group (RWG) Meeting on 29-30 January 2015 in Bangkok.The topics of discussion…
Assessment of the Enabling Environment for Cross-Boarder Trade of Agricultural Inputs in Thailand, Vietnam, and Cambodia
This study assesses the agribusiness-enabling environment for cross-border trade in the Lower Mekong region by focusing on specific indicators of four key agricultural inputs: seed, fertilizer, pesticide, and fish fry. The study examines the country-level and regional issues in Thailand, Vietnam, and Cambodia with respect to (1) administrative (in)efficiency, (2) transaction costs, and (3) strength…
Cambodia Consults Private Sector on Draft Environmental Impact Assessment Law
On December 5 in Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s Ministry of Environment (MOE) and the Vishnu Law Group, with support from the USAID-supported Mekong Partnership for the Environment project implemented by Pact, held a consultation forum with the more than 125 representatives from international and national companies and business associations, who provided input on the country’s draft…
Mekong Government and Civil Society Support Strong Environmental Impact Assessments
In Bangkok, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)-supported Mekong Partnership for the Environment (USAID MPE) project and the Asian Environmental Compliance and Enforcement Network organized an event that brought together more than 50 government and civil society representatives from Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam to exchange ideas on environmental impact assessment (EIA)…
USAID Grant Trains Cambodian Civil Society Organizations on Forest Equity
The NGO Forum on Cambodia, a network of 89 civil society organizations in Cambodia, organized a three-day training of trainers (ToT) on “Improving Equity in Forestry Management and REDD+ Process” for community facilitators.Twenty-three of its members learned more about the principle and elements of social equity and inclusion in the forests and climate change context.…
Improving Payments for Environmental Services for Green Growth in the Lower Mekong
From November 24 to 25, key stakeholders from Lower Mekong countries participated in a regional workshop on payment for environmental services (PES) co-hosted by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Center for International Forestry Research and Vietnamese Academy of Forest Sciences in Hanoi, Vietnam.Fifty-five participants from government, non-governmental organizations, the private sector and academia…
RECOFTC Publishes Q&A Booklet on Equity in Forests and Climate Change Context
RECOFTC, the Center for People and Forests, recently published a new addition to its climate change handbook series, “Equity in Climate Change and REDD+,” with USAID and the Norwegian Agency for Development (NORAD) support through their respective projects, Grassroots Equity and Enhanced Networks in the Mekong and Grassroots REDD+.The projects identified a need for a…
Training Provides Leaders with Tools for Better Management of Protected Natural Resource Areas
From November 17 to 20 in Chiang Mai, Thailand, the USAID Low Emissions Asian Development (USAID LEAD) program provided training for 25 policymakers, national park managers, academics and other practitioners from Cambodia, India, Laos, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam on a methodology for guiding decisions related to management of protected natural resource areas.The workshop on “multi-criteria…
