Portal:Laos/Selected article/6

Banner of promotion for the Mekong River Commission in occasion of finishing the new building office in Vientiane

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." 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. 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).

2001 also saw a major shift in the MRC—at least on paper—when it committed to a role as a "learning organization" with an emphasis on "the livelihoods of the people in the Mekong region." In the same year its Annual Report emphasized the importance of "bottom-up" solutions and the "voice of the people directly affected." Similarly, the 2001 MRC Hydropower Development Strategy explicitly disavowed the "promotion of specific projects" in favor of "basin-wide issues." In part, these shifts mark a retreat from past project failures and recognition that the MRC faces multiple, and often more lucrative, competitors in the project arena.