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The Lao government held a public consultation here Thursday to gather feedback on its revised draft of the Water Resources Law, according to an IFC press release.
With support from International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the World Bank, more than 40 representatives from civil society, international organizations, the private sector, development partners and academia gathered to discuss the revised legislation.
"We have been improving the law from the former version from October 1996," Deputy Director General of the Department of Water Resources at the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment ( MONRE) Thoumma Saleumxay told Xinhua in an exclusive interview.
"The original law contained just 10 chapters and 49 articles. Right now in the new legislation we have 15 chapters and 94 articles," he said.
According to Thoumma, a revision of the Water Resources Law was needed to reflect the new socio-economic situation after years of rapid development and economic growth.
Broad consultation has been conducted in over 18 provinces since 2012 to ensure that the law is suitable for stakeholders
Subsequently, the new law now aims to regulate activities that have a significant impact on the quality and availability of water and river flow by putting into place a system of water rights.
"Water belongs to all of the citizens and all of us have the right to its use. That's why we have the laws to protect water resources," said the deputy director general.
According to Thoumma, assistance from the IFC which are in turn operating with support from the World Bank has been invaluable. IFC have provided a team of international experts and conducted capacity building for official members. IFC have also assisted in analysis of the legal framework of the legislation.
"I think what this law really does is put in place a water rights regime," IFC Senior Operations officer in charge of its Mekong hydro program Kate Lazarus told Xinhua.
"That's one of the significant inputs into the current version which is really looking at permitting of water. Looking at users, trying to define who the users are, and what kinds of permits that they would require to access and use that water based on small, medium, and large scale uses of water," she said.
In its current form, the revised law also includes legislation for new water issues such as the use of reservoirs and how wetlands are identified and treated.
According to Lazarus, during this most recent consultation, synergy between the revised Water Resources Law, the Land Law, the Land Policy, and the Forest Law which are all in the process of revision was identified as an important area by participants.
"I think a lot of comments from the participants were towards ensuring that there was no overlap and that there was complementarity between the laws," Lazarus said.
Since 2012, the IFC has supported the development of an issue paper, a gap analysis and a comparison of the law against the IFC' s performance standards relating to environmental and social risk management.
"One of the key comments from the National Assembly last year was we want to pass a year that can be readily implementable," Lazarus said.
The IFC is a member of the World Bank Group and the largest global development institution focused exclusively on the private sector. IFC works with private enterprises in about 100 countries and use their capital, expertise and influence to help eliminate extreme poverty and boost shared prosperity.
In the 2014 financial year, IFC provided more than 22 billion U. S. dollars in financing to improve lives in developing countries and tackle urgent development challenges.
