Initiative protects water resources

The Mekong Region Water Dialogue (MRWD) was recently launched to improve water governance for the benefit of local livelihoods and the natural environment.Water governance will be improved through the use of multi-stakeholder dialogue around specific water-related issues at the sub-national, national and regional levels, said Aban Market Kabraji, regional director of IUCN in Asia on Nov. 24, 2008.This dialogue, supported by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN), currently had multi-sector National Working Groups in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.Plans are in place for Thailand, China and Myanmar to joint the dialogue next year.Each country has a national working group with 10 policy-making representatives from relevant sectors and ministries, businesses, civil society organizations, universities, research institutions, the community and mass media.Through MRWD people from all strata of society will have the chance to take part in making important decisions related to water resources for the enhancement of their quality of life and the protection of the environment, said Pham Quoc Hung, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development’s Department of Water Resources.This is an important forum to discuss the difficulties facing water resources management in Vietnam, said Hung.MRWD is an arena where civil society organizations such as ourselves can share our ideas and experiences related to the use and protection of water resources with policy-makers and state management agencies, said Nguy Thi Khanh, deputy director of the Centre for Water Resources Conservation and Development.Each country working group is responsible for the development of a process that will identify and prioritize a limited set of water-related issues around which future dialogues will be developed, said Robert Mather of IUCN.Each year, the national working groups will select the most urgent governance issues to study. Results of the studies will be used for national dialogues and planning.The groups will help establish connections between decision-makers and policy-makers to promote improved water governance in their countries as well as around the Mekong region.