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The Mekong River Basin is the catchments’ area of the Mekong River and its tributaries in six countries. |
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Location: Greater Mekong subregion and Mekong River |
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Partner: Governments of Cambodia, Lao PDR, Vietnam and the People's Republic of China |
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Donor: Asian Development Bank |
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Over a length of 4200-km the Mekong river passes from its origins in the Highlands of Tibet to its estuary in the South China Sea (the Mekong delta) through the Yunnan Province of the People's Republic of China, Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam.
About 60-65 Million people are living in the approximately 795,000 sq. kilometres of the Mekong River catchment. This population depends more or less directly on the Mekong and its tributaries for food, water, transport and many other aspects of their daily lives.
A large number of people in the Mekong River live on less than a dollar a day and the Lower Mekong Basin remains among the poorest regions in the world. Excepting Thailand, nominal per capita income ranges from US$254 in Cambodia to US$354 in Vietnam. Between 33 and 40% of the population in Cambodia, Lao PDR and Vietnam live beneath the poverty line. Even for Thailand, the wealthiest of the four Lower Mekong Basin countries, poverty remains a critical issue. The Thai population living within the Mekong Basin area lag far behind the rest of the country in socio-economic status (Map 2). Cambodia and Lao PDR face the worst conditions in terms of poverty. For all four countries the incidence of poverty in rural areas is much higher than in urban areas, this is especially pronounced in Vietnam, where 9% of the urban population and in comparison 45% of the rural population are living in poverty (Tab. 2)
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