GMS Contents

The COVID-19 pandemic created a crisis for communities around the world. In tourist hubs and border towns of Cambodia and Thailand, families were particularly hard hit, struggling to survive amid travel restrictions and economic downturns. To address this crisis, ADB tapped local-based civil society organization Mith Samlanh to implement a project which provided support and assistance to these communities.

ADB’s Multi-Donor Project Readiness Improvement Trust Fund (PRI Fund) helps Southeast Asia prepare and design infrastructure projects with climate-resilient features.

ADB approved $36.5 million loan and grant for the Lao PDR in 2012 to improve the country’s capacity and preparedness to manage and mitigate the impacts of flood and drought through the Greater Mekong Subregion Flood and Drought Risks Management and Mitigation Project in Vientiane capital and provinces of Khammouan and Savannakhet.

ADB has been helping to protect biodiversity conservation corridors in the Lao PDR since 2006 through a range of conservation and protection activities. In 2011, ADB approved $20 million grant for the BCC project. The project helped restore, protect, and manage biodiversity corridor sustainably. In 2016, ADB approved additional grant financed by the Climate Investment Funds through its Forest Investment Program to help manage the biodiversity corridors and scale up activities to stop deforestation and forest degradation in the country.

Electricity demand in Viet Nam is expected to grow at 8% annually through to 2030. Meeting this demand will require increasing power generation capacity and developing more renewable sources of energy. Building the infrastructure to generate and transmit the extra energy capacity will require significant amounts of financing and strong collaboration.  

The Mekong region is introducing tourists to a wider array of attractions after several tourism start-ups are placed under an innovation accelerator program supported by the Asian Development Bank and the Government of Australia. 

Since 1992, the GMS Program has helped connect countries, enhanced nations’ competitiveness, and bring communities closer together. As it moves toward its fourth decade, the GMS Program will continue to advance the subregion’s extraordinary transformation, preparing for the dynamic challenges of tomorrow through GMS-2030, its long term strategic framework.

The Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR) has one of the fastest rates of urbanization in Asia. To boost economic development and attract foreign investments, a smart and able workforce is essential.

Tech startups can provide needed digital solutions that can reinvigorate economies. However, findings from Cambodia, Thailand, and Viet Nam show that tech startups rely on an array of small financing sources and that venture capital is elusive. This webinar will discuss financing sources and policy options to support impactful tech startups in the greentech, agritech, edtech, and healthtech when patient capital is in short supply.

Tourism is a foundation of the Asia and the Pacific economy. But once-bustling tourist hotspots now resemble ghost towns as the impact of COVID-19 casts a heavy pall over the industry.