Water governance : a situational analysis of Cambodia, Lao PDR, and Viet Nam

The situation analysis studies assessed the current water governance frameworks encompassing policies, legal and regulatory frameworks, and institutional and decision-making aspects, for the three countries. The studies were used to assist the NWGs by identifying the key water governance issues for each country, providing recommendations on relevant dialogue topics for 2009 and 2010 and highlighting the scope for improving water governance. Each situation analysis study was presented to the respective NWG for approval and endorsement. Following this, national multi-stakeholder meetings were conducted, inviting representatives from government, the civil society and NGO sector, community representatives, academia/research sector and the private sector, to prioritise the issues and agree the key topics for further investigation during 2009 and 2010. This synthesis report presents the key findings from the three studies and describes some of the issues, differences and commonalities between the three countries. It is hoped that this report will provide a means for identifying opportunities where countries can share information and draw on the learnings of their neighbouring countries in addressing waterrelated governance and development challenges.