Hanoi programme of action adopted

By Amit Baruah

HANOI, JULY 28. The Mekong-Ganga Cooperation grouping, which brings together India, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, has agreed that each member country should consider the possibility of contributing seed money to an MGC Fund for four identified areas of cooperation - tourism, culture, education and transport and communication.

The MGC Ministerial Meeting today adopted a six-year Hanoi Programme of Action (July 2001 to July 2007) for specific measures to be taken in each of the identified areas. However, funding for the fledgling organisation poses a problem.

Addressing a press conference, the Myanmar Foreign Minister, U Win Aung, who took over as MGC chairman today, said the grouping had decided to approach the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and World Bank for funds to implement the Asian Highway Project - a grandiose scheme to link the region.

There is little doubt that the MGC is a new concept and will take time to fructify. The nature of the grouping is no doubt unique - a bridge between India and the Mekong region. Ministers and officials attending the meeting appeared conscious of the problem surrounding the organisation and tried to be specific in formulating the Hanoi Programme of Action (HPA).

Many of the points made in the HPA were general in nature and, while welcome in themselves, left open the question of implementation. U Win Aung, at his press conference, referred to the sentiment expressed at the meeting that the MGC's programme should not be only paperwork, but should have results. However, it is also true that the MGC is just about a year old, and teething problems for such a grouping should hardly come as a surprise.

The HPA contained specific suggestions in all the four sectors identified for cooperation. The highlight in the tourism area was the decision to encourage cross-border tour packages, especially in long-haul markets, so that visitors can discover the rich cultural and civilisational affinity of the MGC region.

In the field of culture, the HPA, among other things, decided to promote exchange and exhibition of all performing arts, visual arts and literature, including traditional dance, music and theatre, and encourage people-to-people exchange.

On the education front, it was decided to establish a directory of universities, education research and management institutes, and information technology training institutes in MGC countries as well as develop networking and twinning arrangements among MGC universities and institutes.

The HPA also promised to promote IT connectivity of educational institutions in the MGC region and the development of course content and impart educational programmes on the internet to facilitate human resource development and upgradation of skills to power the information revolution.

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Section  : International
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