Power and Responsibility: The Mekong River Commission and Lower Mekong mainstream dams

Abstract

The revival of plans to build up to 11 hydropower dams on the Lower Mekong mainstream focuses attention on the Mekong River Commission (MRC), an international river basin organisation assigned with the task of ensuring the sustainable use and management of water and related resources of the Lower Mekong Basin. Although questions regarding MRC’s role have been posed since its inception, the proposed mainstream dams signal an especially critical time for MRC. How MRC addresses key concerns and balances different interests in the basin will have signifi cant bearing on MRC’s perceived relevance to its member states, donors and the people of the basin. This report focuses on two aspects of MRC’s structure and activities in relation to mainstream dams: its governance role and its role as a knowledge-based organisation. In regard to governance, MRC asserts that it is an intergovernmental organisation, not a supranational one and, as such, its role is primarily to serve its member states. This position calls for a better understanding of MRC power and responsibilities, and whose interests the MRC serves. MRC’s governance structure has implications for a river basin organisation that portrays itself as an independent producer of knowledge and science. There are many areas of knowledge in which MRC can use its science to help manage and develop the river more equitably and sustainably. This report reviews MRC’s fi sheries research and modelling of development scenarios and examines how MRC acts on its knowledge base to infl uence planning and decision making on mainstream dams. The final section examines the responsiveness of MRC to the wider basin community and the opportunities and challenges arising from its recent efforts to engage various stakeholders more actively. Drawing heavily on MRC’s own research and statements, this report seeks to inform and open discussions regarding MRC’s role in relation to the proposed lower mainstream dams.