The Mekong River Commission was formed on 5 April 1995 between the governments of Cambodia, Lao PDR, Thailand and Viet Nam. The four countries agreed on joint management of their shared water resources and development of the economic potential of the river.

The Flood Management and Mitigation Project Component 2, ‘Structural Measures and Flood Proofing’, started in 2007 and is on-going. The project is executed by Haskoning Nederland BV, in association with Deltares, UNESCO-IHE and in close collaboration with the MRC staff. The objectives of the project are:

• To reduce the vulnerability of people living in the Lower Mekong Basin to the negative impacts of floods and
• Establish sustainable flood risk management capacity in the MRC, its Secretariat, the National Mekong Commissions and the national line agencies.

The project has a ‘learn by doing’ character in which the preparation of measures aiming at the reduction of people’s suffering goes together with building capacity and preparing guidelines for a socio-economic and environmentally sound flood risk management. To realise the objectives five steps are distinguished:

1) Assessment of the flood damage risks;
2) Identification of potential measures for risk reduction;
3) Evaluation of impacts of the identified measures and development of strategies for flood risk management at sub-basin level;
4) Flood risk management plans are to be developed on the basis of these strategies. Such plans include a set of measures and projects for the reduction of flood damage risk in a certain area;
5) The measures and projects are prepared for implementation.