12^th Working Group on Environment Meeting

Participants at the WGE-12 meeting held in Bangkok, Thailand, 25-26 April 2006

The Twelfth Meeting of the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) Working Group on Environment (WGE-12) was held in Bangkok, Thailand on 25-26 April 2006. The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MONRE) of Thailand hosted the meeting in cooperation with the Asian Development Bank (ADB). The participants included delegations from Cambodia, the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Lao PDR, Myanmar, Thailand, and Viet Nam. Observers/resource persons from MFLU, IGES, UNCRD, UNEP, SEI, SIDA, USAID, US EPA, The Netherlands Government, MRC, IUCN, WWF, and ADB also attended. The objectives of the WGE-12 meeting were to review the progress of the GMS Core Environment Program (CEP), and discuss its key activities and budget for year 1. Co-chairing the meeting were Dr. Monthip Sriratana Tabucanon, Deputy Permanent Secretary, MONRE, Mr. Urooj Malik, Director, MKAE, ADB, and Mr. Surendra Shrestha, Regional Director, UNEP (for day 2).

The WGE-12 meeting was divided into the Technical Session held on April 25, and the Formal Session held on April 26. The WGE-12 noted the importance of the Technical Session for deciding on the key technical and operational details and issues of the Core Environment Program (CEP) with the active contribution of the CEP partners in the formulation of agreements. Technical Sessions will henceforth be a regular feature of WGE meetings to review CEP progress.

After presentation and discussion of work plans of GMS countries and specific proposals potential CEP partners, the WGE members endorsed immediate implementation of the BCI work plans. The meeting commended the CEP partners for the open and broad based discussions on the proposed institutional and other coordination arrangements in the implementation of the CEP. In particular, the WGE-12 agreed on the need to build capacities of national support units (NSUs) for implementing work plans, and to accelerate staffing of the Environment Operations Center (EOC) to facilitate CEP implementation. In addition, the WGE agreed on the creation of the Technical Advisory Panel (TAP) to serve as the CEP’s peer review body. WGE members called for better balance in allocation of resources among CEP components and the EOC was tasked to screen proposals received and follow up the views of relevant partners on remaining issues such as the Partnership Principles, TAP composition/functions/nominees, development partner inputs to WGE, and the CEP operational planning calendar, among others.

The Proceedings, Resolutions and some photos of the meeting are available as the links below:

• 12^th WGE Meeting (WGE-12), Summary of Proceedings
• 12^th WGE Meeting (WGE-12), Resolutions
• 12^th WGE Meeting (WGE-12), Photos