Greater Mekong Forum 2018

[About the 2018 Forum]

The Greater Mekong Forum on Water, Food and Energy is the largest annual knowledge-sharing event in the Greater Mekong. It presents research-based evidence to non-governmental organisations, policy-makers, the private sector, and development agencies. It does this through carefully designed and facilitated dialogues.

The 2018 Forum theme is:
Economic Development and the Rivers of the Greater Mekong: The rivers of the Greater Mekong hold great economic value in terms of their hydropower, fisheries, transport and agricultural potential. So too, these rivers are economic and ecological corridors generating immense economic growth for the countries through which they pass. But this economic growth comes with its own social, economic and environmental challenges. The 2018 Greater Mekong Forum on Water, Food and Energy will focus on ways in which these challenges can be addressed through tried-and-tested solutions, knew knowledge generated by research and through a regional, multi-sectoral, multi-stakeholder dialogue.

[Forum purpose]

The purpose of the forum is to:

To create ‘safe’ spaces for stakeholders to come together to informally discuss difficult and controversial water-related discussions.
To network and to promote cross-regional learning on water-food-energy nexus-related issues.
To encourage and facilitate building of networks across sectors and river basins to support future collaborations.
Interface research-based solutions with a non-technical public, policy-makers, and the private sector.
Provide would-be users with an opportunity to deliberate and query potential solutions.
Who attends the Forum?
The forum is designed for knowledge users: government and development agencies, the private sector and research-for-development practitioners. We emphasise deliberation and listening, query and debate.

At the 2017 Forum, we welcomed 431 participants, representing 171 institutions. 7% of our participants were Cambodian, 6% Chinese, 7% Laotian, 34% Myanmar, 7% Thai, 10% Vietnamese and 27% international. The forum attracts participants from the research community, civil society, government and the private sector.