Conclusions of Alumni workshop Vietnam 2012

The focus of first workshop of German alumni in South Vietnam was IWRM and renewable energy. It was held at Nong Lam university (NLU) and Vietnamese German University (VGU) in Vietnam. The workshop gathered 25 Alumni from 6 countries including Vietnam, Indonesia, Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar, the Philippines and South Korea. Together with German experts they exchanged their own experiences and knowledge about IWRM, natural environment, renewable energy, societies and policy frameworks in their countries.  At the end of workshop, a regional network of alumni was established with the aim of better coordination between alumni in ASEAN countries. The idea behind this initiative is to support the regional cooperation in transboundary research activities and technological transfer in sectors of water and energy.

The key findings from the seminar can be summarized as follows:

• Rapid urbanization and industrialization, increasing in per capita consumption as well as growing population, all put together are driving not only rapid use of water resources and energy but also leading to environmental pollutions. Thus, achieving water and energy for sustainable development in ASEAN countries will be one of the grand challenges ahead of us. The workshop presenters promoted methods of using IWRM and renewable energy as key factors for solving such challenges.
• IWRM leading to sustainable development is yet to be achieved in river basin management. On the basis of experiences gained in the long-term projects on water sector funded by BMBF in Vietnam, it has become obvious that IWRW for Mekong region could be best used as a tool for sustainable development. However, shortcomings in communication and data collection together with the weakness of institutional cooperation at local, national and international levels influence significantly the implementation of IWRM. The discussions within the workshop, therefore, clearly showed the importance of expert networks and education to improve the IWRM development process.
• In comparison with the development of water sector, projects involving research and technology transfer in area of renewable energy between Germany and ASEAN-countries are relatively small. However, there is a steadily increasing trend of investment in renewable energy, particularly in wind- and bioenergy. Presenters from Vietnam, the Philippines and Myanmar indicated that ASEAN-countries possess a large amount of biomass resources. This potential is already at present available as a regional resource delivering energy at low investment costs. In order to fully use biomass potential in a sustainable way, however, strong links with research and technology transfer and increased collaboration among ASEAN-countries and Germany are needed.

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