Environmental Monitoring

Readily available environmental information and data is an essential prerequisite for government planners to make effective development decisions and realize sustainable development goals.

The industrial sectors of Cambodia, Lao PDR, and Myanmar are rapidly growing and are helping drive economic development. For example, in Lao PDR, industry has doubled its proportion of national Gross Domestic Product during the past decade (12% to 25%). While the expansion of pulp industries including paper mills, cement factories, food processing and garment manufacturing, are providing new jobs and economic benefits, there are increasing concerns over industrial pollution, particularly on water and land quality.

CEP provided technical and financial support to the Asia-Pacific Forestry Sector Outlook Study II (APFSOS II), which began in 2007. Led by the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, the outlook studies provide a benchmark for monitoring change, and predicting future trends, for forestry in the GMS and broader Asia-Pacific region.

During the second round of EPAs, increased emphasis was given to building national capacity, producing better quality information, and ensuring that analytical results fed into national planning processes.

Environmental performance assessments were conducted in six GMS countries, namely Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Thailand, Viet Nam, and Yunnan Province in the PR China. This was part of an ADB regional technical assistance project known as Strategic Environment Framework Phase II (SEF II) conducted from 2003–2005.