In today’s ever-changing world, where we navigate a landscape overflowing with information, the ability to make sense of data and use it for informed decision-making becomes essential. Yet for many Women Environmental Defenders (WED), their stories are often lost or told in ways that dehumanize them and in some circumstances vilify them. By focusing on building capacity for data literacy and storytelling, we can help WED to take control of their own narratives.

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Between 2004 and 2012, the trade in hydropower technologies between South-to-South increased from below 10% of total global trade to nearly 50%. China has been a strong financier of infrastructure projects as part of its Belt and Road Initiative, investing nearly $25.85 billion globally. Hydropower is seen as integral in the push towards green energy development in the Lower Mekong Region, with countries such as Vietnam and Thailand outlining their plans for green growth. 

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Photo: Moe Bye Dam in Shan State which is the main source for Baluchaung (Lawpita) Hydropower Plants. By Kantabon – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0

All five countries of the Lower Mekong Region are participating in REDD+, but they are at different stages of readiness and implementation. Because REDD+ implementation is fragmented and complex, it is difficult to get a full and accurate sense of all REDD+ related projects and activities. Below are some examples of related projects by country.

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Photo: Mountainous forest Seen from the Mekong River by Klim Levene | CC-BY-2.0.

The Open Development Initiative (ODI) has been facilitating the collation and release of data and information for over eleven years now. The demand and need to provide data for our civil society constituents is summarized through a threefold process. Read more

Photo by Stephen Dawson on Unsplash

The Open Development Initiative (ODI) first began working with our constituents on data literacy in 2019, with a 3-month data literacy programme for journalists in Myanmar. Since then we have localized our Data Literacy Curriculum, adapted from the World Bank Certificate Program, to meet the needs of specific groups, such as forestry advocates, educators, women’s networks, and Indigenous Peoples in Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam and Laos.

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Gender inequality underscores the lives of women all over the world. At the Open Development Initiative, we wanted to understand how this impacted women in the Mekong countries of Cambodia, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Myanmar, and Vietnam (CLMV) in their access to open data. In 2019, we conducted and completed a study on this topic, the results of which have now been published on the Open Development Mekong platform.

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Photo by Mimi Thian on Unsplash. Licensed freely on Unsplash.

The novel coronavirus has triggered a global response of extreme measures. The immediate changes are countable. As of April 15, 2020, over 2 million cases of the novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) have been counted globally, with over 100,000 confirmed deaths. Tech tools to track the movement of infected people are being deployed around the world, from Israel to Singapore, with some of the largest historically rival companies globally – Apple and Google – teaming up to develop a tracking system.  

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Infrastructure development has been growing in the Lower Mekong Region, but what does that actually mean? Learn more about the financing and financiers, impacts, and gender issues relevant to infrastructure development in an ever-evolving story feature here.