Development plan needs to have a singular focus

An initiative by Cabinet ministers from Thailand and Cambodia last week to reactivate the “Emerald Triangle” cooperation plan is a welcome move, but the overall plan requires new ideas if there is to be a successful resurrection. If not, the whole thing could end up as yet another waste of time, money and resources.

The Joint Committee on Border Area Development and Connectivity between Thailand and Cambodia, in its first meeting in Phnom Penh on June 11, agreed to restore the Emerald Triangle plan in order to develop the border-conjunction area of Cambodia, Laos and Thailand. 

Initiated in 2000, the plan involved the three countries agreeing to develop the border area to promote tourism in seven provinces – Thailand’s Ubon Ratchatani and Si Sa Ket; Cambodia’s Preah Vihear, Oddar Meancheay and Strung Treng; and Laos’s Champasak and Salavan.

The three countries have agreed over the past decade to do many things under the scheme, but little progress has been seen so far from what they called the “action plan”. The last ministerial meeting of the Emerald Triangle cooperation plan took place in 2009 in Cambodia’s Siem Reap. Nothing has happened under this initiative since then.

There are a number of factors contributing to the delay in the realisation of the project. Political difficulties in Thailand over the past seven years since the removal of Thaksin Shinawatra’s administration in 2006 posed the first major cause. At times poor relations between Thailand and Cambodia on disputed border issues have presented another obstacle.

Perhaps most significantly, this project, by nature, overlaps with other cooperation schemes in the Mekong River basin. Indeed, tourism-promotion projects also reside in other regional cooperation frameworks such as the Greater Mekong Subregion and the Ayeyawady-Chao Phraya-Mekong Economic Cooperation Strategy (ACMECS). 

All three members of the Emerald Triangle agreement are also members of these other cooperation schemes along the Mekong. It is thus difficult for officials who are responsible for these cooperation initiatives to create unique plans for these quite similar frameworks. 

In 2003 foreign ministers of the three countries agreed in Pakse, Laos, to introduce an ACMECS Single Visa to facilitate tourism in member countries of the Emerald Triangle. Thailand and Cambodia agreed bilaterally to launch the single visa last year. Laos has yet to join the scheme. 

Few tourists have utilised this service so far. Under this single visa, visitors are eligible to travel through the whole of Thailand and Cambodia. Thus, it is not unique only to the provinces covered by the Emerald Triangle. To be more precise, the single-visa initiative has no specific meaning to the Emerald Triangle.

To give specific value to the Emerald Triangle, the effort to breathe new life into the project should concentrate only on specific ideas and plans that are unique to the border provinces of the three countries. Historical and cultural aspects should be taken into account. If a limit is placed on an area that includes only the seven provinces, there are plenty of attractive historical and cultural sites along the Phnom Dang Rek mountain range. They include at least two Unesco World Heritage sites – Phat Phu in Laos and the disputed Preah Vihear temple in Cambodia, which has been the main cause of border friction with Thailand over the last few years. Thailand’s Phnom Roung sandstone temple might be smaller and younger than Preah Vihear, but it has valuable historical significance connected to the Khmer civilisation. Besides these manmade attractions, the region also has many natural attractions that could draw tourists.

If the three countries really want to resurrect the Emerald Triangle plan, they need to look beyond the old paradigm of simple development cooperation, especially if that cooperation overlaps with already existing initiatives. Otherwise, the idea will never be realised.