Mekong Basin Development Planning - Opportunities for Private Sector Involvement

Experts agree that private sector involvement will be essential to sustainably develop the Mekong Basin. Yet cooperation and information sharing between the private sector and the Mekong River Commission (MRC), the region’s intergovernmental agency on joint management of shared water resources, remains limited, despite the many development proposals for the Mekong and its tributaries.

“The private sector could share knowledge with the MRC,” said Hans Guttman, Chief Executive Officer, MRC. “This could include knowledge created during project preparation such as data on fish migration.”

As the secretariat of its four member countries, the MRC could direct data collected by the private sector to its government counterparts (the National Mekong Committees) in Cambodia, Lao PDR, Thailand, and Vietnam. This is an opportunity for the private sector to work with the MRC and improve engagement with government partners during the planning and operation of hydropower projects.

“The private sector is an engine of competitive solutions for sustainability,” said Kate Lazarus, IFC Senior Operations Officer.  ”Businesses can help address many of the challenges identified in the Basin Development Strategy.”

At a recent two-day forum held in Cambodia, leading river basin management experts and other stakeholders from around the region reviewed and discussed the MRC’s Mekong Basin Development Strategy.

The strategy aims to strengthen regional river basin planning. It addresses the private sector’s role in regional water resources management and acknowledges that the private sector is the main driver of hydropower development in the lower Mekong.

Public-private partnerships can be mutually beneficial for businesses, government bodies, and international institutions.  Guttman suggests IFC help MRC create a private sector working group to promote development opportunities, exchange information with the MRC, determine constraints to basin development, remove impediments to private sector engagement, and disseminate best practice guidelines.

During the Cambodia forum, Lazarus highlighted ways for the private sector to get involved, pointing to the Hydropower Developers’ Working Group in Lao PDR as a platform for discussing strategies and policies.

“There are many opportunities for the private sector to be engaged in this strategy,” said Lazarus. “The private sector manages their own risks, so it can finance sustainability and help ensure policies and strategies are realistic and implementable. Private sector players must be incorporated into this process.”