Donor/Partner: Asian Development Bank    |    Duration: 2012-2013    |    Location: Mekong region; Cambodia, China, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam

About: This Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) of the GMS Power Development Master Plan assessed the environmental, social and economic impacts of the GMS Master Plan and identified measures to avoid and mitigate negative impacts and enhance positive impacts. The SEA involved missions to each of the six GMS countries to assess alternative GMS energy futures and their effects, and to identify ways to avoid and mitigate negative impacts and enhance benefits.

The overall role of the SEA was to improve the ecological sustainability of energy planning in the GMS region in conjunction with social and economic objectives. The process provides a framework for training and capacity building consistent with OECD SEA best practice and GMS countries procedures.

Read and download all Briefing Papers and Knowledge Products from the SEA

The SEA will guide future energy policy options and the mixes of energy technologies that best meet demand with the minimum of unplanned and unwanted side effects. The role of the SEA is to propose ways of improving the ecological sustainability of the plan with social equity and economic efficiency, taking into account the many competing sectoral, social and environmental demands and implications for the GMS.

The SEA also provides guidance for more specific assessments at the national, sub-national and project level. The objective of the SEA is to assist the GMS countries to develop a reliable and environmentally and socially sustainable regional electricity supply system in the GMS and the impact will be the development of a more environmentally and socially sustainable regional electricity supply system in GMS countries. The outcome will be the enhanced capacity of GMS country energy and environmental planning agencies and utilities to undertake SEA as a key component of energy planning.

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>> View slideshow of SEA team fieldtrips to Lao PDR, Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam