Myanmar-Netherlands 7th Joint Steering Committee Meeting was held via Video Conferencing on 15th October, 2020 from 1:30 PM to 3:30 PM Myanmar Standard Time. Steering Committee Members from two countries attended the meeting.
Mr. Henk Ovink, Special Envoy for International Water Affairs, from Netherlands gave opening remarks and Mr. Kyaw Myo, Deputy Minister of Ministry of Transport and Communications, from Myanmar delivered a keynote. After approving the meeting agenda, participants approved minutes of Joint Steering Committee (JSC) 2019.
Mr. Rob Steijn, Mr. Tom Kompier and Mr. Willem Mak respectively gave presentations relating to progress with cooperation and participants discussed regarding presented projects. Ms. Carola van Rijnsoever presented “Possible additional activities 2021” and Acting Director General of Directorate of Water Resources and Improvement of River Systems, Mr. Win Hlaing presented “Directions for cooperation beyond 2021” respectively. After discussing on the presentations, participants also discussed on any other important business regarding to bilateral cooperation on Integrated Water Resources Management. Then, Mr. Henk Ovink and Mr. Win Hlaing did signing of minutes of JSC meeting 2019. The meeting concluded with Mr. Henk Ovink’s closing remark.
It is learned from Multi Annual Working Programme 2020-2021 that there are “completed projects”, “ongoing projects” and “planned activities” under the cooperation on Integrated Water Resources Management between Myanmar and the Netherlands. The projects include the followings:
- Regional Water Security Study (RWSS)
- Yangon Flood Model
- SWECO Design Evaluation
- Irrigation system analysis
- Training using water level loggers/ data collection
- Nyaungdon dike failure emergency response
- Zalun Rapid Risk Assessment
- Quick Scan on Saline Agriculture in the Ayeyarwady Delta of Myanmar
- DRR-Team mission Mon State
- Advanced cloud computing for water resources management and agriculture in Myanmar using Google Earth Engine
- EIA Guidelines Water related projects
- Groundwater scoping study Yangon Region
- Training Nature Based Solutions
- Navigation with Nature
- Leapfrogging Delta Management II
- Thaketa Climate Adaptation Pilot Project
- Additional Sums Yangon Flood Model
- Yangon Flood Model Capacity Building
- Scoping study Mangrove Protection in the Ayeyarwady delta
- WaterWorx Mandalay City Development Committee (MCDC)
- Higher Education in Full Flow: Education, Research and Innovation for Sustainable Water Management in Myanmar
- WE = Water Education Myanmar
- WE PLUS = Interdisciplinary, Practice-Oriented Water Education in Myanmar
- Multi-level capacity building on river morphology and flood risk using state-of-the-art open satellite data and processing tools
- Pan Hlaing Sluice
- Nyaungdon Flood Protection
- Hlaing Thar Waste Water Management
- Public Transport on the Chindwin River
- Pyigyitagon Water Supply
- Developing and piloting a data collection plan for the Ayeyarwady delta
- Flood Management Scoping Study
- Zalun Riverbank Protection
- Keeping the flow: capacity building for river engineers (DWIR)
Besides these (33) projects, there were also five “Learning by Doing” projects identified under Multi-Annual Working Plan signed during second JSC meeting held on 2014. They are –
- Integrated Meiktila Lake Area Development
- Bagan Multi-Purpose Pilot River Beautification
- Pan Hlaing Control Sluice cum Navigation Lock
- Feasibility Study Mandalay-Bagan navigability improvement
- Bago-Sittaung Canal Integrated Water System Analysis
Among these five projects, Integrated Meiktila Lake Area Development still needs to be implemented and is calling for proper action plan. Therefore, it is strongly advised to take necessary measures to be able to implement the Integrated Meiktila Lake Area Development.
