Aid and development

China on Thursday signed an agreement with the Mekong River Commission (MRC) to share year-round data on the flow of its portion of the vital waterway amid concern that Chinese dams may be causing drought downstream in Southeast Asia. A push for more data from China’s ...

The Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) has agreed to provide a grant of US$11 million for a project to establish an effective water resources management system and enhance disaster response capabilities for the Nam Ngum River basin. According to the KOICA Office in Laos, the project ...

Coastal communities in Myanmar are extremely vulnerable to the impact of climate change and highly exposed to severe natural weather events such as heavy rain, storm surge, floods and cyclones. To help Myanmar respond to those natural challenges, the Forest Department, with the support from Denmark, ...

The Australian government is reportedly preparing to bolster its aid programs in Southeast Asia, as concern in Canberra mounts about China’s growing influence in the region. According to an October 12 report in The Age, Australia is finalizing a Southeast Asian aid package that would inject of ...

Deputy Prime Minister Hor Namhong said that China has provided about $140 million in grants for urgent development projects in the Kingdom. The grant came as Chinese State Councillor and Foreign Affairs Minister Wang Yi gave a diplomatic note to the Kingdom at a meeting on ...

The U.S. government aims to take another bite out of Chinese influence in Southeast Asia with a partnership to aid five countries that traditionally tap Beijing for help, experts in the region say. The Mekong-U.S. Partnership, formed September 11, will give Washington more clout in Cambodia, ...

Thaw Lay, a high school student from Yangon, the capital of Myanmar, knew that this school year would be unlike any other. “I was excited, but I also knew that things would be a little different, when school reopened later this year”, he recalls. Thaw Lay ...

Representatives of the European Union (EU) and the Lao government have held discussions on an agreement on combating illegal logging and promoting trade in legal timber products. The issue was discussed at the fourth Joint Expert Meeting (JEM) on a voluntary partnership agreement (VPA) on forest law ...

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is assisting the government of Thailand in designing, issuing and monitoring innovative capital market initiatives as part of the country’s recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic in a manner aligned with the 2015 Paris Agreement and the UN Sustainable Development Goals. ADB’s ...

Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Tran Hong Ha, on behalf of the Vietnamese Government, has called on countries to combine strength and coordinate actions in a more urgent, drastic and practical manner to protect biodiversity – a priceless natural resource. Ha made the appeal at ...