Myanmar with a view to long-term conservation of water resources has some outputs to promote environmental and conservation concerns with required decision making.

Policies and Measurement for Conservation of Nature and Environment

• National Commission for Environmental Affairs (NCEA): formed in1997
• Agenda 21 for environmental conservationworks: developed and use a guide line for the conservation of nature. The items adopted for implementation of environmental conservation works related to water are:
• Integrated management of land resources,
• Sustainable fresh water resources management,
• Sustainable forest resources management, and
• Sustainable management of coastal, marine and island ecosystem.
• Environmental Conservation Committee: established in 2004 and seven special task forces headed by Deputy Ministers from related Ministries were formed according to the States and Division of the country and actions were already started to do such measures.The possible environmental deterioration to be confronted in Myanmar are reduction of forest cover, loss of soil fertility, climate change, sedimentation and pollution problems etc. The works assigned to be carried of by special task forces are:
• Conservation of forest areas,
• Conservation of land resources,
• Conservation of water resources, and
• Conservation of ecosystem.

Policies and Measurement for water conservation

• Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM): Myanmar has launched a program called “Myanmar Water Vision” in 2003, which became a basic awareness and public participation for successful implementation of in the country.
• Strategic planning and management (SPM): launched in 2004 as the follow up activity after national water vision. The out come of SPM are the establishment of core groups and forming of the national level apex body, “Myanmar Water Resources Committee,” which is comprised of a number of Government Ministries concerned. In this regard, Myanmar Water Resources Committee was established in 2005 focusing on the following priority functions.
  1. Harmonizing the relationship among water related agencies
  2. Establishment of rules for water resources management
  3. Establishment for the study of pilot river basin management
  4. Enhancement for the participation of all the stakeholders.

The reform of the water management system must be carried out soon, and at the same time the function of the management agency must be strengthened. The important problem for water resources planning is lack of sufficient information and data and it is also necessary to promote better coordination among water users and different agencies dealing with water resourcesdevelopment. It should also need to strengthen the capacity building to water sector to collect statistics and data in systematic manner.