On 27-28 February 2023, the Mekong Programme, under the Asian Center for International Development (ARCID), School of Social Innovation, Mae Fah Luang University in collaboration with the Institute of Developing Economies - Japan External Trade Organization (IDE-JETRO), and Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung Southeast Asia Regional Office hosted the 4th Mekong Dialogue: the Water-Food-Energy-Climate Nexus: Revisiting Development in the Mekong Region" at the Coordinating Office of Mae Fah Luang University, Bangkok, Thailand
The Dialogue focused on the Water-Food-Energy-Climate Nexus: Revisiting the Development in the Mekong Region. On top of enlightening opening remarks from Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nantana Gajaseni, Vice President of Mae Fah Luang University, Thailand and Ms. Mayumi Murayama, Executive Vice President of the Institute of Developing Economies - Japan External Trade Organization (IDE-JETRO), Japan, participants from Mekong member countries and Australia, China, and Japan held wide-ranging discussions on the following areas:
- trans-boundary water management, with a focus on exchanges of water data via community peer-review to predict drought and flood in the sub-region
- food and land security, highlighting issues relating to shared governance using a commons-based, community-based and evidence-based approach
- environmental security and biodiversity conversion in the sub-region
The Mekong dialogue is a forum of a 2.5 track consisting of participants from academic, think tanks, IOs, and (I)NGOs from Mekong countries as well as extra-regional countries which play an essential role in the development of the region, such as Australia, China, Japan, South Korea, and the US, to discuss the issue of transboundary water resources management in the region.
Altogether, active participation from the senior staff of Asian Vision Institute, Cambodia, Embassies of Australia and the United States of America in Thailand, Global Environmental Institute, China, GRET-Laos, IDE-JETRO, Innovation Network International - Thailand, Institute of International Rivers and Eco-security – China, JICA, Mekong Environmental Forum - Vietnam, Mekong Region Land Governance, Myanmar, PACT, Chulalongkorn University, Mae Fah Luang University, Thammasat University, and Yunnan University, and online attendees resulted in constructive and practical discussion with forecasting to practical solutions at the 4th Mekong Dialogue.
