Asian Development Bank (ADB)
The Greater Mekong Subregion
Description:
The GMS Program was started in 1992 to promote economic and social development in the six Mekong countries, namely, Cambpdia, the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Lao PDR, Myanmar, Thailand and Viet Nam, by strengthening economic linkages between and among them. The vision of the GMS Program, as enunciated by the GMS Leaders, is a subregion that is prosperous, integrated and harmonious, to be pursued through the 3Cs strategy of enhanced connectivity, increased competitiveness and greater sense of community. Aside from promoting market-based integration through provision of physical infrastructure and software, the GMS Program also helps in addressing shared concerns such as communicable diseases and transboundary environmental issues.
The GMS Program implements or prepares for implementation, with the support of ADB and other development partners, high priority subregional projects in transport, energy, telecommunications, environment, human resource development, tourism, trade, investment, and agriculture. The Program’s institutional set-up comprises the GMS Leaders’ Summit at the political level, the GMS Ministerial Meeting, supported by the Senior Officials’ Meeting at the policy level, and the sectoral working groups at the project and operational level.
In the environment sector, the GMS Working Group on Environment (WGE) was established in 1995 to serve as an advisory body on subregional environment issues, and to serve as a forum to promote cooperation in environment and natural resource management issues among GMS countries. It also helps facilitate the implementation of priority subregional environment projects and ensures that environment issues are properly addressed in subregional projects in other sectors. The WGE’s priority initiatives in the past include the development of the Strategic Environmental Framework (SEF), which prescribes a common framework for integrating social and environmental issues in development activities, comprising among others, the development of environmental performance indicators and assessment systems. To address growing concerns on the sustainability of the subregion’s development track, the WGE developed the Core Environment Program (CEP) as the central program to address subregional environmental challenges. The CEP was endorsed at the Second GMS Summit of Leaders in Kunming in July 2005. It creates a vision and framework for long-term investment in subregional environmental governance and institution building, achieving sustainability and environmental protection in the main development sectors and economic corridors, and conserving biodiversity across the landscapes traversed and impacted by the economic corridor development.. It supports the broad-based sustainable development agenda of the GMS based on the principles of equity and sustainable development. The CEP has five main components: (i) environmental assessments of economic corridors and sector strategies in the GMS; (ii) biodiversity conservation corridors initiative (BCI); (iii) environmental performance assessments; (iv) regional institutional development; and (v) sustainable financing. The CEP, costing an estimated total of $36.11 million with ADB administering over $25 million was approved by ADB in December 2005. Key partners include the Governments of Netherlands and Sweden. The CEP also provided for the establshment of the GMS Environment Operations Center based in Bangkok, which is responsible for coordinating the day-to-day operations of the CEP.
Contact Information:
For more information or requests on the GMS Program, please email: gms@adb.org
For more information or requests on the Core Environment Program, please email: gmscep@adb,org; or visit www.gms-eoc.org.
