Mekong Evaluators Institute

14/08/2026

Along Cambodia’s Mekong, communities in Prey Veng province have watched riverbanks collapse and the river move closer to their homes while sand dredging continues nearby. Residents say they raised concerns for years. Eventually, people from Thmey village confronted dredging crews themselves. A new local monitoring committee followed.

That sequence should trouble us. The companies involved have permits, but legality is not the same as accountability. When communities have to confront an industry before their concerns carry weight, something is wrong with the way the river is being governed.

Sand is enormously valuable to construction and infrastructure. But the Mekong is not a supply chain. It is land, food, livelihood, habitat, security, and home. The economic benefits of extraction can travel elsewhere while the risks remain on its banks.

Communities should not have to fight for recognition after decisions have been made or damage has begun. Their knowledge, rights, and relationship with the river should help determine what extraction is acceptable in the first place.

The deeper question is not simply whether sand dredging is properly regulated. It is who the Mekong is being governed for.

"The reason we wanted him to come in person was that a ministry official claimed there was no erosion here at all," said resident Chhun Thoeun. &q ...

13/08/2026

Less than a year ago, Cambodia joined the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty initiative, supporting a global effort to end the expansion of fossil fuels and pursue a just transition away from coal, oil, and gas.

Today, Cambodia is moving closer to drilling its first onshore oil and gas wells.

EnerCam Resources announced this week that potential drilling contractors have begun assessing access to four proposed drilling sites in southwestern Cambodia while the project’s environmental impact assessment remains under government review. The company says the system being developed for these first wells could provide a precedent for additional oil and gas projects as the sector develops.

The contradiction deserves more attention than whether four exploratory wells can satisfy environmental requirements.

A just energy transition cannot be measured only by renewable capacity added, emissions targets announced, or international commitments made. It must also be measured by the extractive systems governments choose to create, expand, or leave behind.

Cambodia has legitimate interests in energy security and economic development. But establishing a new domestic fossil-fuel industry is not simply another energy project. It is a long-term development choice, with consequences for future infrastructure, investment, emissions, landscapes, and communities.

The harder question is therefore not whether Cambodia can develop its oil and gas resources responsibly. It is whether building a new fossil-fuel industry is compatible with the just transition Cambodia has committed to pursue—and who gets to decide what that transition should look like.

(TheNewswire) GRANDE PRAIRIE, ALBERTA TheNewswire - (August 12, 2026): Angkor Resources Corp. (TSXV: ANK,OTC:ANKOF) ("ANGKOR" OR "THE COMPANY") announces that senior representatives of its Cambodian energy subsidiary, EnerCam Resources Co., Ltd. ("EnerCam"), met with potential drillin...

10/08/2026

Indigenous Peoples do not need to be invited into conservation as stakeholders. They are already governing, restoring, monitoring, and protecting the ecosystems that outside institutions say they want to save.

A new Mongabay feature marking the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples documents Indigenous-led approaches to forest protection, river management, restoration, fire prevention, biodiversity monitoring, and climate adaptation across several regions. Again and again, the same pattern emerges: conservation works best when rights are secure, authority is local, and solutions are rooted in the knowledge and governance systems of the people who live there.

The problem is not a lack of Indigenous participation. It is that governments, donors, and conservation institutions still design too many programs from the outside and then ask communities to fit themselves into those models. Indigenous leaders interviewed by Mongabay point instead to secure territory, community decision-making, cultural continuity, direct financing, and solutions developed from within their own governance systems.

If conservation depends on Indigenous lands, knowledge, and stewardship, then Indigenous Peoples should not be treated as beneficiaries of conservation policy. They should be recognized as authorities in shaping it.

Eriberto throws his head back with a laugh and shakes it as he tills his plot of land in the Peruvian Amazon, near the Cordillera Azul National Park in central Peru. “That does not work here,” he says with a chuckle, responding to a question about why he doesn’t call his diverse forest garden ...

06/08/2026

The nonprofit sector often asks communities to be bold, challenge injustice, and stand up to power. But are we willing to do the same?

India Development Review challenges nonprofits to reflect on whether nonprofit actions align with values. In a time of shrinking civic space, political pressure, and growing inequality, courage is something our organizations must embody. That means questioning harmful systems, speaking truth to power, embracing difficult conversations, and taking principled risks in pursuit of justice. https://bit.ly/4fqZHvf

06/08/2026

Environmental governance begins to fail when measuring pollution becomes more politically achievable than preventing it.

Thailand and Myanmar have signed an agreement to cooperate on water quality in the rivers they share. Improved monitoring and information-sharing are worthwhile. But communities along the Kok, Sai, Ruak, and Mekong rivers have not spent months demanding better data. They have demanded an end to the activities contaminating the rivers that sustain their lives.

The more fundamental question is not how pollution should be measured. It is who has the authority to prevent it from occurring in the first place.

Environmental governance cannot end with documenting harm after it has already entered a river. Its purpose is to prevent avoidable harm before communities are forced to live with its consequences.

The agreement was announced alongside commitments to deepen trade, investment, and economic cooperation. That makes accountability even more important. Environmental cooperation should never become the language through which broader commercial relationships gain legitimacy while the systems producing environmental harm remain unchanged.

A river does not become healthier because governments sign an agreement. It becomes healthier when the activities degrading it stop—and when the people whose futures remain inseparable from it have genuine authority over the decisions that shape it.

The leader of Myanmar's military-backed government has arrived in Thailand on an official visit. The visit by President Min Aung Hlaing is seen as part of an effort to gain political legitimacy after seizing power five years ago.

14/07/2026

A river is a living system that sustains communities, cultures, livelihoods, biodiversity, and relationships that have evolved over generations.

Yet communities living along the Yuam, Ngao, Moei, and Salween rivers continue to face decisions that could fundamentally reshape those relationships in pursuit of development.

A recent statement from communities opposing the Yuam River diversion highlights that debates over water are never only about engineering or infrastructure. They are also debates about power, justice, and whose relationship with a river counts when decisions are made.

Instead of asking how rivers can serve development, we should ask how development can serve rivers and the people whose futures remain inseparable from them.

Civil society groups are rushing to mobilise communities whose homes and livelihoods will be affected by the revived Yuam River plan

04/07/2026

The reported revival of Myanmar's Myitsone Dam is often framed as an energy or infrastructure story.

It is not.

It is a question of who has the right to decide the future of rivers, lands, and the communities that depend on them.

The project was suspended in 2011 after extraordinary public opposition. Its reported return reminds us that the hardest questions have never been about engineering. They are about power. Who decides? Who benefits? Who pays the price when rivers are transformed and communities lose the places that sustain their lives?

Across the Mekong Region, rivers are too often treated as economic assets before they are recognised as living ecosystems and the foundation of cultures, livelihoods, and identities.

A just future cannot be built by asking communities to accept decisions already made. It begins by recognising that the people most affected should have the strongest voice in shaping them.

Myanmar's new government aims to complete within roughly eight years a contentious $3.6 billion dam project at Myitsone in northern Kachin state, said two sources ​with knowledge of comments by Khet Htein Nan, who leads the state administration.

30/06/2026

At the UN climate negotiations in Bonn, smallholder farmers from Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Pacific made a clear case: those most affected by climate change should have far greater access to climate finance.

Yet today, only 0.36% of international adaptation finance reaches smallholder farmers and their organizations directly.

Climate finance has become the dominant conversation when climate justice should be the dominant objective.

The debate often focuses on mobilizing more capital rather than asking deeper questions: Who decides? Who benefits? Who bears the risks? And do current systems actually reduce emissions, restore ecosystems, and strengthen the rights and agency of the communities most affected?

Climate finance should not be judged simply by how much money it moves. It should be judged by whether it advances justice, shifts power toward local communities, and transforms the systems driving the climate crisis.

At the UN Climate Change Subsidiary Bodies meetings (SB64) in Bonn, farmer leaders representing 95 million smallholders across Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Pacific delivered a clear message: climate resilience cannot be built without investing directly in the people who produce most of the wo...

26/06/2026

The World Bank's IFC has rejected findings from its own accountability mechanism on harms linked to microfinance investments in Cambodia.

Development finance is not only about expanding access to capital. It is also about who bears the risks when investments cause harm, whether safeguards are effective, and whether affected communities have meaningful access to remedy.

Concerns over debt-driven land loss and impacts on Indigenous communities highlight why accountability cannot be treated as optional.

Development should strengthen rights, protect land and livelihoods, and ensure that those harmed have a credible path to justice.

The World Bank’s International Finance Corporation rejected its ombudsman’s findings about harm related to investments in Cambodia’s microfinance sector, failing a critical test of accountability.

22/06/2026

China and Laos have announced a new special fund under the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation framework, reinforcing the growing role of regional financing mechanisms in shaping the Mekong's future.

Development finance is not neutral. Decisions about where money flows, who participates in decision-making, and how benefits and risks are distributed have lasting consequences for communities and ecosystems.

As investment and cooperation deepen across the region, transparency, accountability, and meaningful participation matter more than ever.

Development should ultimately be measured not by the volume of investment, but by whether it delivers equitable and sustainable benefits for the people and communities it is meant to serve.

China and Laos have signed a cooperation agreement for a special Chinese-backed fund ​under the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation (LMC) mechanism established in ‌the Mekong sub-region, Chinese state news agency Xinhua said on Thursday.