Mekong River Commission Basin Development Plan
From SEA.unu.edu/wiki
Background and objectives
The Mekong River Commission, on behalf of its member states (Thailand, Viet Nam, Cambodia and Laos), is preparing a Basin Development Plan (BDP) for the Lower Mekong Basin, of which environment is a key cross-cutting theme. The formulation of such a Plan is a key task laid out in the 1995 Mekong Agreement. The Agreement defines the BDP as a planning tool to identify, categorise and prioritise projects and programmes for joint and/ or basin-wide development. It is envisaged that as a planning document, the BDP will contain: a Basin Development Strategy and a Basin Development Management Plan. The BDP must ensure that harmful effects to other member states resulting from development activities are minimised.
To meet the objectives of the BDP as laid out in the 1995 Agreement, the Strategy will need to set out:
- A description of development objectives consistent with the policy of each country.
- An agreed strategy for managing water and water-related resources to best fulfil development objectives.
- A process to identify, categorise and prioritise projects and programmes for joint/basin- wide development.
The Management Plan will set out specific actions to develop and manage the basin’s resources and the means to monitor these. It has for example been proposed that it will include:
- A portfolio of transboundary programmes and projects to meet strategic needs. These will be made up of: Structural investment projects (e.g. bank protection schemes) & Non-structural development programmes (e.g.regulations to prevent overexploitation of fish stocks).
- Programmes to address identified knowledge gaps (research, etc.).
Approach
SEA should be applied at the strategic level in order to establish the broad environment framework to compliment the BDP Strategy. One of the BDP outputs is a portfolio of basin- wide investment projects. Environmental impacts of the projects should be taken into consideration by using SEA. This could help to determine at which location the different types of projects can best be initiated.
At “Level1SEA” (during formulation of the Basin Development Strategy), the extent to which broad development interventions (e.g., hydropower development, expansion of irrigated agriculture etc.) affect the chosen criteria is assessed. At “Level2SEA”, long list projects are screened for their potential to cause environmental impacts using a checklist tool. This will determine whether projects will require more detailed project-level Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) or Cumulative Effects Assessment (CEA) to enable them to move onto a short list or during feasibility stages.
Outcomes
The intended outcome from the SEA application will be fed back to refine the Strategy, though some environmental sustainability objectives have already been ensured, including:
- Protection of environment, natural resources, aquatic life and conditions and the ecological balance of the MRC from harmful effects of development (1995 Agreement).
- Prevention of pollution and other harmful effects of development and acceptance of responsibility for damage caused.
- Protection of the Tonle Sap lake: development of the river must not impede the natural reverse flow into the Tonle Sap.
- Maintenance of flows: Mekong flows in both the wet and dry seasons should be maintained within agreed limits (negotiated under the 1995 Agreement).
(Reproduced with permission of OECD.)
