"Cross-border cooperation in water resource management: the case of greater Mekong sub-region"

Participating in the conference were experts from regional countries commonly interested in the issue of water resource management such as Prof. Detlef Briesen (University of Giessen, Germany), Prof. Kim Philip Schumacher (Vechta University, Germany), Prof. Kumaresan Raja (Pondicherry University, India), Dr. Win Maung (Myanmar Environment Institute), Dr. Vannarith Chheang (ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute), etc. Vietnamese leading experts such as Prof. Nguyen Ngoc Tran (former President of the State Program on General Investigation in the area of Mekong River Delta), Prof. Do Tien Sam (Institute for Chinese studies, Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences) and researchers from USSH, VNU Hanoi. 

The conference was split into four panels with the following topics: the challenges in cross-border cooperation for water resource management in the greater Mekong sub-region; cross-border cooperation in the Mekong sub-region; the role of the big countries; cross-border cooperation in water resource managment: lessons from other regions in the world; cross-border cooperation in water resource management: realistic prospects. 

The papers at the conference mentioned the challenges related to the lack of a comprehensive and all-round collaborative mechanism between countries directly connected to the Mekong River. One of the longest and greatest rivers originating from Qinghai province on the Tibetan Plateau, the Mekong River flows through Yunnan (China), Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam and into the East Vietnam Sea. To effectively manage the water resource in such a large regional river, it is necessary to involve all countries from upstream to downstream, because every impact, no matter how large it is, can affect the entire region. To respond to these challenges, apart from the role of countries directly related to the water source in the Mekong River, other countries such as the US, France, Japan and South Korea have to get involved, so as to create a multilateral mechanism of common interest for managing the water source in the Mekong sub-region.