Senior agriculture and environment officials from the six Greater MekongSub-region (GMS) countries met in Xiengkhouang, Laos on April 2 todiscuss environmentally sustainable agriculture and natural resourcemanagement in the region, according to the Asian Development Bank (ADB).
The bank said in a press release that more than 130participants attended the meeting, including officials from energy,transport, and tourism ministries, as well as representatives from ADBand development partners, national development organizations, and otherstakeholders.
Delegates discussed opportunities forincreased collaboration between the Working Group on Agriculture andWorking Group on Environment, co-hosts of the event and two of nineworking groups under the ADB-supported GMS Economic CooperationProgramme. Both working groups must work together to tackle the growingconcern for water scarcity, climate variability and volatility, andconsequent rising risks of food and ecosystem service supplydisruptions.
Agriculture remains the backbone of economiesin the GMS and directly supports the livelihoods of nearly 200 millionpeople. However, agriculture gains have come at the expense of theenvironment, causing forest and biodiversity loss, water pollution andshortages, soil degradation, and greenhouse gas emissions.
Thetwo working groups are scheduled to hold their annual meetings on April3, followed by a joint field trip the next day to visit environmentallyfriendly agriculture projects in Xiengkhouang, one of the ‘green’provinces in Laos.
In late 2012, both working groupsbegan implementing the second phase of their flagship initiatives: the14 million USD Core Agricultural Support Programme and the 23.1 millionUSD Core Environment Programme.
The six Mekong countries are Cambodia, China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam.
Since1992, the GMS Programme has invested more than 15 billion USD in roads,airports, railways, power facilities, tourism infrastructure, anddisease prevention in the region.-VNA