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Regions and Countries Regional Cooperation Greater Mekong Subregion Publications Proceedings of Ministerial, Forum, and Working Group Meetings Appendix 3 - Report on the Environment Sector to the Senior Officials' Meeting, 11 January 2000
Report on the Environment Sector to the Senior Officials' Meeting 11 January 2000The Sixth Meeting of the Working Group on Environment (WGE) was held in Manila on 10 January 2000 to prepare a strategic response to the Interim GMS Assistance Plan, 2000-2002. This report to the Senior Officials' Meeting summarizes the consensus reached during the WGE 6. The WGE took special note of two major initiatives in the Interim Plan -- poverty reduction and development of economic corridors. Taken together, these fit well into the concept of sustainable development. In recognition of this, the WGE recommends that "economic corridors" be renamed "sustainable development corridors". Beyond simple word games, this new designation will clearly signal to all interested parties the intention of the GMS Program to promote sustainable development. The WGE proposes, as an overarching recommendation, an in-depth review of the GMS environment program. Expanding on the recently completed GMS Program study by ADB's Operations Evaluation Office, this would assess the environment program's effectiveness in promoting sustainable development within the GMS Program, examine the appropriate balance between support for environmental studies and environmental investments, and importantly, explore the poverty-environment nexus. The role of environmental planning in the GMS Program dominated the WGE 6 discussions. The evolving nature of development planning -- expanding participation by civil society, rapid information exchange within and beyond national boundaries, and awareness of the costs of environmental degradation, among others -- requires early integration of environmental considerations in development planning from the conceptual stage and at all levels. The increased costs to projects such as Theun-Hinboun Hydropower due to late consideration of environmental issues illustrate that this requirement is based on economic considerations as well as environmental. The WGE recommends that economic-cum-environmental planning methodologies being developed under the GMS regional technical assistance program, such as the Strategic Environmental Framework for the GMS and the Subregional Environmental Monitoring and Information Systems (SEMIS), be supported and widely applied in the GMS countries as these methods are strengthened and experience gained. A good start would be to immediately undertake economic-cum-environmental planning studies for the five sustainable development corridors. Further development and application of cumulative environmental assessment is needed. There also is a need to identify and prepare environmental investment projects within overall development planning. Coordination between the WGE and the other GMS sectors is weak. The WGE suggests that strong coordination is essential in promoting sustainable development within the GMS Program. The WGE recommends that focal points for each sector meet to map out a strategy for improved coordination, and would be willing to take the lead in this. The strategy should consider apprising each national sector focal point of major events, such as working group meetings and issuance of major reports, and convening annual coordination meetings that bring together all working groups at the national level. It also should consider publication of newsletters and an expanded use of communication infrastructure, including the Internet. Data coordination is equally essential. Meta-data standards evolving from SEMIS should be adopted by the Governments of the GMS and endorsed at the 2001 Ministerial Meeting. Major data-holding agencies in the GMS should review and revise obsolete data-sharing policies to facilitate information exchange and to consolidate information into a subregional environmental data management system. The WGE notes that, guided by the outputs of SEMIS I, the Seventh ASEAN Ministers' Meeting on Environment adopted environmental meta-data standards and harmonized an environmental database. Improved data collection is required if the GMS Program is to place its environmental and development programs on a sound technical foundation. The WGE recommends that at least 5 percent of funding for all projects be devoted to information collection, analysis, archiving, and dissemination. A common subregional framework on data collection and assessment is required. Further efforts are needed at the national level to decentralize the environmental information network and to improve data quality. These initiatives require consistency at the subregional level regardless of the donor or project executing agency. Environmental training programs should be continued. Following on an earlier recommendation, support should be provided for training programs on economic-cum-environmental planning methodologies. Environmental training materials and case studies already developed under projects supported by ADB, such as the technical assistance on Subregional Environmental Training and Institutional Strengthening in the GMS, and those supported by other agencies such as the Mekong River Commission, are largely in the English language; support should be provided to translate and publish selected materials in the six major languages of the GMS. Additional training is required in computer hardware/software, especially software maintenance. Training in quality assurance is important, especially for laboratories.
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