Mekong region water resources decision-making : national policy and legal frameworks vis-à-vis World Commission on Dams strategic priorities

How are decisions about water resources development made? This question is prompted by the continuing global interest in the final report from the World Commission on Dams (WCD), released in 2000, which offered seven strategic priorities as a framework to aid decision-making about large dams and other types of water resources development. As part of their response to the WCD Dams and Development Report, IUCN members and partners in the Mekong Region decided to use the Strategic Priorities as an entry point to a brief review of current frameworks. The policy briefs presented in this volume were synthesised from the final versions of the national studies undertaken in five of the six Mekong Region countries: Cambodia, China, Lao PDR, Thailand and Viet Nam to study the application of the World Commission on Dams Strategic Priorities in the Mekong Region. The objectives were to analyse the extent to which existing national policies and legislation already support the ideas embodied in the WCD Strategic Priorities; and to suggest changes to the existing policy and legislative framework in each country that might improve water-related governance.