Financing the Lower Mekong River Basin Development

THE MEKONG RIVER bears to Southeast Asia much the same relationship which the great Mississippi bears to the central states of northern America. The eighth longest river in the world and the tenth greatest in the volume of water it carries, it rises in the snow-clad Tang-Ku-La mountains of the Tibetan plateau, flows generally in a southerly direction through China and the Indochinese peninsula, finally discharging into the South China Sea near Saigon. It traverses six countries: China and Burma in its upper reaches; and Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and the Republic of South Vietnam in its lower reaches. The lower Mekong referred to in this article is the section from the Burma border to the sea flowing through or separating the territories of the latter four countries; it has a length of 2,400 kilometers and drains an area of about 60g,0o0-square kilometers.* The significance of the Mekong to the states which share in it led over a century ago to the conclusion of international agreements, beginning with the Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation between France and Siam (Thailand) on August I5, i856. But concerted efforts for development of the river were undertaken only after the establishment of the Committee for Coordination of Investigations of the Lower Mekong Basin (The Mekong Committee) in I957 under the auspices of the Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East (ECAFE).' Since then the entire outlook and motive force of development have undergone a radical change; in addition to the basin states twenty-six countries2 outside the basin, seventeen United Nations agencies,3 four foundations,4 and a number of private organizations,5