Mekong River Commission
 |
|
| Abbreviation | MRC |
|---|---|
| Formation | April 5, 1995 |
| Legal status | 1995 Mekong Agreement |
| Headquarters |
Vientiane, Laos Phnom Penh, Cambodia |
|
Region served
|
Southeast Asia |
|
Membership
|
Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam |
|
Main organ
|
Council |
| Website | www |
The Mekong River Commission (MRC) is an intergovernmental body concerned with the Mekong River basin and charged “to promote and co-ordinate sustainable management and development of water and related resources for the countries’ mutual benefit and the people’s well-being by implementing strategic programmes and activities and providing scientific information and policy advice.”
The origins of the Mekong Committee are linked to the legacy of (de)colonialism in Indochina and subsequent geopolitical developments. The political, social, and economic conditions of the Mekong River basin countries have evolved dramatically since the 1950s, when the Mekong represented the "only large river left in the world, besides the Amazon, which remained virtually unexploited." The impetus for the creation of the Mekong cooperation regime progressed in tandem with the drive for the development of the Lower Mekong, following the 1954 Geneva Conference which granted Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam independence from France. A 1957 United Nations Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East (ECAFE) report, Development of Water Resources in the Lower Mekong Basin, recommended development to the tune of 90,000 km2 of irrigation and 13.7 gigawatts (GW) from five dams. Based largely on the recommendations of ECAFE, the "Committee for Coordination on the Lower Mekong Basin" (known as the Mekong Committee) was established in September 1957 with the adoption of the Statute for the Committee for Coordination of Investigations into the Lower Mekong Basin. ECAFE’s Bureau of Flood Control had prioritized the Mekong—of the 18 international waterways within its jurisdiction—in the hopes of creating a precedent for cooperation elsewhere. The UN’s involvement represented the UN’s "first direct involvement in international river basin planning" and "one of the UN's earliest spin-offs", as the organization functioned under the aegis of the UN, with its Executive Agent (EA) chosen from the carrier staff of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
The U.S. government—which feared that poverty in the Basin would contribute to the strength of communist movements—proved one of the most vocal international backers of the Committee, with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation conducting a seminal 1956 study on the basin’s potential. Another 1962 study by U.S. geographer Gilbert F. White, Economic and Social Aspects of Lower Mekong Development, proved extremely influential, notably resulting in the postponement of (in White’s own estimation) the construction of the (still unrealized) mainstream Pa Mong dam, which would have displaced a quarter-million people. The influence of the United States in the Committee’s formation can also been seen in development studies of General Raymond Wheeler, the former Chief of the Army Corps of Engineers, the role of C. Hart Schaaf as the Mekong Committee’s Executive Agent from 1959 to 1969, and President Lyndon Johnson’s promotion of the Committee as having the potential to "dwarf even our own T.V.A." However, US financial support was terminated in 1975 and did not resume for decades due to embargoes against Cambodia (until 1992) and Vietnam (until 1994), followed by periods of trade restrictions. However, Makim argues that the Committee was "largely unaffected by formal or informal U.S. preferences" given the ambivalence of some riparians about U.S. technical support, in particular Cambodia’s rejection of some specific types of assistance. However, the fact remains that "international development agencies have always paid the bills for the Mekong regime," with European (especially Scandinavian) nations picking up the slack left by the United States, and then (to a lesser extent) Japan.
...
Wikipedia