BORDA Southeast Asia

Sustainable resource management in Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Vietnam and the Philippines

Despite the continued economic growth of about 500 million people, Southeast Asia still has 16-33% of the population living in extreme poverty (annual per capita income less than 1,000 Euros). Growing industrialisation and urbanisation is associated with an increasing threat to public health, heavy pollution of natural resources, and a significant climate impact. In particular, rapid urban population growth poses massive policy and administration challenges. Realistically, the public sector is unable to provide the entire population with sanitation and wastewater systems in the mid- to long-term. As a result, many people have to defecate in the open and large quantities of untreated wastewater enter the groundwater and surface water. Similarly, insufficient or inadequately built public waste management infrastructure as well as uncontrolled and improper waste disposal transmits infectious diseases and contaminates water resources. Experience shows that people are particularly affected in densely populated urban and peri-urban poor areas.