Closing the Adaptation Gap: Strategies for Climate Resilience in the Agriculture and Water Sectors of the Greater Mekong Subregion

This consultation draft policy brief by the Stockholm Environment Institute examines climate hazards affecting the agriculture and water sectors in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS). It analyzes the status of National Adaptation Plans (NAPs), identifies critical climate risks such as heatwaves and flooding, and outlines priority adaptation strategies and financing gaps across the region's member states.

• The Greater Mekong Subregion is experiencing a range of climate hazards—including heatwaves, wet-season flooding, dry-season droughts, and tropical cyclones—that damage water infrastructure and soil integrity, which in turn threatens food security and the livelihoods of rural communities.
• Progress on National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) varies across the GMS: Cambodia is the only LDC GMS country to have submitted a NAP to the registry, while China adopted a National Strategy on Climate Adaptation 2035 in February 2022. Other countries, such as Vietnam and Thailand, are in advanced stages of preparation or have sectoral plans but lack a comprehensive multi-sectoral final version.
• Specific climate risks are impacting the region, including extreme heat in Cambodia (64 days per year over 35°C) and Lao PDR (where such days rose from 40-50 to 110), and high flood risk in Vietnam (10/10 on the INFORM Risk Index 2023). In Thailand, RCP 8.5 projections suggest rainfed rice yields could decrease by 10% and crop water productivity by 29% by 2080.
• Regional adaptation priorities focus on four main areas: improving water management and conservation (such as flood and drought monitoring systems in China), implementing climate-resilient farming (including 'three reductions for three gains' in Vietnam and Thailand), enhancing disaster preparedness, and pursuing ecosystem restoration.
• Significant implementation barriers exist, including institutional fragmentation, a lack of consistent financing, and a reliance on official development assistance. There is a noted gap in knowledge and research capacity to design evidence-based policies, and existing plans often fail to address the needs of vulnerable groups in a gender-sensitive manner.
• Climate finance in the GMS is heavily skewed toward debt and project-based funding rather than grants. In Vietnam, climate change expenditures from 2016 to 2020 averaged USD 1.3 billion annually, with 80% of ministerial finance going to agriculture and transport infrastructure, yet this remains insufficient to meet national needs.
• Agricultural insurance is underutilized in the GMS and is largely ineffective for slow-onset disasters like droughts, which cause 60% of average annual losses in Southeast Asia. While Thailand and Vietnam have had policies since the late 1970s/early 1980s, uptake is limited.

APA

Stockholm Environment Institute (n.d.). Closing the Adaptation Gap: Strategies for Climate Resilience in the Agriculture and Water Sectors of the Greater Mekong Subregion. https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/attachment-2-1-ccesp-policy-study-climate-hazards-impacting-the-water-and-agriculture-sectors-in-the-gms.pdf

Chicago

Stockholm Environment Institute. Closing the Adaptation Gap: Strategies for Climate Resilience in the Agriculture and Water Sectors of the Greater Mekong Subregion. n.d. https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/attachment-2-1-ccesp-policy-study-climate-hazards-impacting-the-water-and-agriculture-sectors-in-the-gms.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Stockholm Environment Institute |title=Closing the Adaptation Gap: Strategies for Climate Resilience in the Agriculture and Water Sectors of the Greater Mekong Subregion |url=https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/attachment-2-1-ccesp-policy-study-climate-hazards-impacting-the-water-and-agriculture-sectors-in-the-gms.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{stockholmenvironmentinstitutendclosing, author = {{Stockholm Environment Institute}}, title = {{Closing the Adaptation Gap: Strategies for Climate Resilience in the Agriculture and Water Sectors of the Greater Mekong Subregion}}, institution = {Stockholm Environment Institute}, url = {https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/attachment-2-1-ccesp-policy-study-climate-hazards-impacting-the-water-and-agriculture-sectors-in-the-gms.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }