How USAID helped build a local network to tackle climate change

The Mekong River, the main artery funneling through six Southeast Asian countries, is a shared resource and a lifeline for many, providing a means of earning a living and a source of food for over 40 million people. But with competing priorities and different styles of governance among Cambodia, China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam, there are disputes over the management of the river. “The biggest challenge is just cooperation amongst the lower Mekong countries and the People's Republic of China as well, and cooperating on transboundary issues such as air pollution and water management, primarily, but responding to emerging diseases as well,” said Steven Olive, who until recently served as mission director for the regional development mission for Asia at the U.S. Agency for International Development. Amid climate change, however, and the threats it poses to what’s considered the world’s largest inland fishery, cross-border collaboration will be key. Rising temperatures and increased precipitation will change the Mekong’s seasons and the flow of water, which will, according to WWF, reduce fish stocks and biodiversity. “We're seeing more extreme events, longer droughts, and sometimes heavier rains than before that communities have to adapt to,” said Olive, adding that hydropower dams that disrupt water flow add to the challenges communities are facing. Having more data on the river to support decision-makers and communities in discussing ways of addressing transboundary issues is “pretty critical, and then sharing them amongst networks,” said Olive, adding that this is something USAID has been supporting in the region for decades. “Again, because you're talking about five different countries, we found we had to connect groups together so that they are sharing information transparently across different countries.” Sitting down with Devex from his Bangkok office, Olive explained how the region is affected by numerous challenges, how USAID is facilitating civil society collaboration, and the need for data to support such partnerships. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. How are communities adapting to the impacts of climate change they're seeing on the Mekong? To be able to say if progress is being made really depends on issue by issue, but what I can say is this: Communities and governments do have access to more data. For example, just a couple of years ago, the lower Mekong countries had very little warning — a day or less — of major floods that were coming down the river, and even being able to predict what droughts were coming up. Now, through our program SERVIR Southeast Asia, working with the National Aeronautics and Space Agency, they provide satellite data. With that imagery, we can develop tools to help predict what's happening upstream: What are the levels of the reservoirs in China and throughout the Mekong, and what are the weather forecasts and things? Even if the information doesn't come directly from China, there are still ways of predicting when there might be floods. Now we're estimating that communities along the Mekong have days, if not weeks, to be able to prepare and know when flood conditions might be coming, and [there is] even longer leeway for droughts. We're working on a trilateral program with the Thailand International Development Cooperation Agency and Laos’ Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment to train them on how to utilize these tools and then how to take action based on what the data tells us. “It's not necessarily on-the-ground impacts, but it's more the networking that we advance as a regional mission.” --— Steven Olive, former mission director for the regional development mission for Asia, USAID You mentioned that regional cooperation was initially a challenge. Over time, how has that eased, if at all? First, we had the Mekong-United States Partnership that brought together the countries of the lower Mekong to discuss and prioritize programs in this area. Second, you have the Mekong River Commission, which is supported by the five lower Mekong countries, but lacks additional funds to do data analysis, collection, [and] assessments that need to be done in order to make good decisions on managing the Mekong River. Through those mechanisms, do you feel like it's become easier to work with the different countries? The dialogue is improving and the sharing of information in a transparent way is improving. It's still not easy because each country has its own goals, objectives, and priorities. And of course, the upper river countries have an advantage and impact that the ones lower down the river can't control, except through dialogs like what the MRC and MUSP provides. How much work are you doing with local civil society groups and the communities themselves on the river to tackle this? We're not working that significantly at the community level since we're regional, but do work with community groups [and] civil society groups, linking them to other civil society groups in the other countries, into a network to share information. It's not necessarily on-the-ground impacts, but it's more the networking that we advance as a regional mission. I should also share with you another thing the U.S. government has done is promote a sister river exchange between the Mississippi River Commission and the MRC. A group has gone to the U.S. and a group of U.S. [personnel] have come and visited the Mekong in an exchange of ideas and best practices and ways to manage a river system. Do the rivers have a lot in common? Yes — a river that changes course over time, that goes through periods of having excess water and drought and less water, and then clearly has a lot of agricultural uses and pressures [on] water. And then looking at the whole river system so that the downstream river users are not disadvantaged by decisions that are happening upstream. In that way, there are similarities. They are considered sister rivers and so that partnership can be called upon at any time. With the work that you're doing bringing CSOs together, how have you seen the civil society landscape change? Late last year, we opened what we called the [USAID-WWF] Hug Mekong Network and library on the border with Vientiane. That's supposed to be a place where we can gather data and analysis that has been done and that can then be shared broadly and publicly. That's one thing that's advanced. Another is by sharing information [for] collective action. For example, there are parts of the Mekong along the Thai-Laos border that have rapids and rocks that prevent bigger ships from getting through. The PRC [China] had proposed that they would dredge and deepen those parts of the Mekong River to allow larger boats, including PRC patrol boats, to move more freely along the river. It looked like Laos officials were ready to accept that, but through actions by civil society, Thailand paused, and they decided to really look at the impacts. Of course, when you're talking about dredging and removing boulders, it not only impacts that region but all the way downstream. By providing data, analysis, and getting groups to really look at what would be the impacts of this, they … did not go forward with the program. That's a really good example of people coming together and transparently influencing their public officials into a decision. Looking forward, what would USAID's priorities be pertaining to the river and its communities? There's still a lot more data to be collected on how the fish populations move up and down the river and how infrastructure projects block spawning and things. An area we haven't touched upon yet is on health issues. Last year, Thailand was to have reached [its target on] epidemic-controlled malaria, but primarily because of the Burma crisis, but also due to some climate change factors, they did not reach that. [It also impacted] the border between Thailand and Laos. We have also, through TICA, worked with Laos’ Ministry of Health to do some workshops and training of Laos health experts to respond more quickly and effectively to malaria outbreaks so that they're contained and addressed and then not spread into Thailand or other parts of the region. That's developing good models and best practices that we eventually hope to apply to Myanmar, but right now, the conflict does not allow for that. We're also doing the same on emerging diseases, using TICA and Thai health experts to train counterparts in Laos on detecting and responding to other emerging diseases. Our role then is to provide the venue, organize the event, think about what happens after a workshop, and support those that come to the workshop.