On May 31, in Hanoi, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Government of the Netherlands signed an agreement valued at $14 million for the Expanded Mekong Subregion Environment Program (CEP) and the Biodiversity Conservation Initiative (BCI).
The grant from the Government of the Netherlands will be utilized to support the implementation of Phase I of the BCI initiative over the next three years. Additional financial support is provided by the Government of Sweden, the UK’s Department for International Development, and ADB.
CEP and BCI are joint initiatives among countries in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS), which includes China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam. These initiatives were endorsed at the GMS Leaders’ Summit held in Kunming, China, in 2005.
The ecological corridor initiative of CEP addresses urgent issues such as landscape disruption arising from economic development and the impact of this disruption on biodiversity and environmental benefits in the GMS region.
According to the BCI initiative, by 2015, countries in the GMS will establish biodiversity conservation belts and areas to maintain ecosystems, ensure sustainable use of shared resources, and improve the livelihoods of local residents.
