Aid and development

The Ministry of Planning and Investment, in coordination with the World Bank, held a conference on November 26 to seek ideas and consultations from leaders of Mekong Delta localities, experts and scientists for the delta’s Integrated Regional Master Plan in 2021-2030 with a vision to 2050. The draft master plan ...

The Japanese government will provide a $3 million grant to help Cambodia fight marine plastic pollution and promote a responsible cycle of using, reusing and recycling all forms of plastic waste. The grant will fund an anti-waste project to be implemented by the Ministry of Environment, ...

Leaders of the Mekong Delta city of Can Tho and the EU Delegation to Vietnam on November 23 shared a hope for multilateral cooperation in climate change response. At a reception for the EU Delegation, Tran Viet Truong, Chairman of the municipal People’s Committee, said Can ...

The United States has announced new funding of $25 million over five years to feed children in schools across the Lao PDR.  The U.S. program, funded through the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition Program project, will be implemented by ...

The borrowing is a part of an executive emergency decree empowering the Thailand’s Finance Ministry to seek loans up to one trillion baht ($32 Bln) to combat economic and social problems resulting from COVID-19 . Finance Minister Arkhom Termpitayapaisith and Hideaki Iwasaki, country director for the ...

President Moon Jae-in on Friday held a summit with leaders of Southeast Asia’s Mekong River nations via video links, in which he promised to contribute US$10 million to help provide new coronavirus vaccines to developing nations. “We will contribute $10 million for coronavirus vaccine support to ...

Lao officials and representatives of the local office of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) have discussed progress on the first draft of the forestry strategy till 2030 which aims to push the country’s forest coverage by 70 percent. The two sides held the 6th Joint ...

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved a US$484-million (624.52-billion-kyat) loan to construct a new expressway connecting Bago Region and Mon State, which lie along Japan’s planned East-West Economic Corridor, a grand infrastructure scheme for the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS). The ADB said the new GMS ...

Vietnam is set to receive tens of millions of dollars to help it keep a promise not to cut down trees, part of a controversial World Bank program that critics say does not produce its intended effect — carbon emission reductions. The Southeast Asian nation has ...

IFC’s pandemic response is focused on reaching the most vulnerable people in developing countries. Of the US$8 billion in IFC COVID-19 fast-track financing approved by the IFC Board in March 2020, US$4 billion has been committed to date, of which close to half is expected to benefit people ...