Conference on Watershed Management for Controlling Municipal Wastewater inSoutheast Asia
Chair's Summary
Backgrounds
1.

This conference has been held on July 28th, 2016 in Nagoya, Japan inspiredby the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of 'halving the proportion of
untreated wastewater by 2030,' aiming to promote an improvement ofinstitutions and infrastructures related to wastewater treatments in Asia.
This conference has been held by the call of Ministry of Land, Infrastructure,Transport and Tourism (MLIT), and Ministry of Environment (MOE) inJapan. Participants included policymakers of ministries concerned withinfrastructure improvement and water environment from five countries ofSoutheast Asia: Cambodia, Indonesia, Myanmar, Philippines and Vietnam,and MLIT, MOE, JICA and Shiga Prefecture in Japan. The conference has
been chaired by Professor Hiroaki Morita at Nihon University.

2.

It is necessary to promote wastewater treatments in all of the countries ofSoutheast Asia to achieve the SDGs. Each country faces severe waterpollutions associated with urban population growth and rapid expansion ofcities. Thus, they are in need of extensive wastewater control plans andsubstantive institutions corresponding with the urban expansion.

3.

Because currently planning systems and the respective state of affairs differ
among the countries, this conference has been held to promote a wastewater
treatment planning in the whole of Asia by sharing information of advanced
examples in the region as well as the situation and challenges in eachcountry.

Opening of the conference
4.

Welcome statements by Mr. Yasuhiro Morioka, Director-General of Sewerageand Wastewater Management Department. MLIT pointed out the similarityof water environmental problems Southeast Asian countries now/will face,which Japan had experienced and tackled in 1960-1970s. Therefore, whileboth Japanese policy and technology are effective solutions, it is necessary toconsider corresponding measures based on regional characteristics inSoutheast Asia and currently available technologies. Mr. Morioka stated thatthe conference would be a starting point for both Southeast Asian countries1and Japan to learn from each other, and discuss a desirable future direction.
5.

Greetings by Mr. Yasumasa Watanabe, Director of the Water Environment
Division, Environmental Management Bureau, MOE introduced Water
Environment Partnership in Asia (WEPA) at the beginning. Mr. Watanabe
also emphasized the importance of the cross-sectorial cooperation between
environmental sectors and infrastructural sectors highlighting the long-termand hand in hand cooperation and efforts made by the MOEJ and the MLIT
to overcome Japan’s environmental problems which occurred in the 1960s.
He also wished for the success of the conference.

Opening session
6.

In this session, MLIT in Japan explained the points of the conference and thenecessity of watershed management. Also, MOE in Japan presented anoverview of water environment managements in Asian countries.

Session 1: Overview of the Water Environment Standards and Effluent Standards andtheir Implementation
7.

In this session, officials in charge of water environments in the participating
countries presented overviews and explained the statuses of ambient water
quality criteria and effluent standards in each country.

8.

All of the five countries have established or are now preparing ambient
water quality criteria and effluent standards. However, the levels of water
quality monitoring and enforcement of regulations based on the effluent
standards are different among the countries.

9.

Most of the countries face problems related to overlapping responsibilities
and regulations among relevant ministries and agencies

10. To conserve the water environment, proper understanding of the status ofwater quality as well as impacts of wastewater to the water environment iscritical.
11. Due to different socio-economic and natural environmental conditions, eachcountry also has its own issues and approaches to tackle the problems.
However, it is essential for all the countries to implement wastewater
management through cross-sectoral collaborations with the involvement ofmulti-stakeholders.

2Session 2: Current Status of the Planning of Municipal Wastewater Treatment
Systems
12. In this session, officials in charge of infrastructure improvement in theparticipating countries presented overviews and explained the statuses ofwastewater treatment plans in each country.
13. Many countries face challenges in introducing a wastewater treatment
system, such as, low awareness of people about the water environment, lowpriority towards the issue from government and community, insufficientregulations and laws for enforcement, limited human resources and budgets
for wastewater management, land limitations and finally a lack of affordable
technology to construct wastewater treatment plants.
14. To overcome the challenges, it is necessary to raise awareness and build
capacity in the multi-sectors and to engage stakeholders starting from theprimary educational level.
15. Although all countries agreed on the importance of the concept of a river
basin-wide planning, countries are in different stages, and a concept of river
basin planning has not yet been introduced in most of them.
16. Some countries highlighted the challenges of formulating plans, including, alack of procedures for the development of the schemes, insufficient national
inventories or difficulty to renew inventories, coordination with development
plans and execution of the plan itself (low budget, institutional capacity).
Session 3: Discussions for the development of municipal wastewater treatment inSoutheast Asia
17. Based on Session 1 and 2, this session discussed measures to promotewastewater treatments and a desirable watershed management in Southeast
Asia.
18. On discussion, topics were proposed by the Chair; ⅰCommon challenges andnecessary measures, ⅱCollaborative actions to promote the measures in thecountries.
ⅰCommon challenges and necessary measures
19. The participant countries shared the discussed points of session 1 and 2.
Shared the view on the common challenges among participant countries andnecessary measures.

3ⅱCollaborative actions to promote the measures in the countries
20. Participants recognized the effectiveness of information-sharing by theattending countries as a first step to solve common challenges among them,and also acknowledged the necessity to hold the conference periodically inJapan in order to share lessons learnt from river-basin approach which
Japan has been taking.
21. So far, no country has conducted basin-wide upper-level planning, thus theattending members pointed out the need to develop a model project forwater-basin wide environmental monitoring in a particular basin in eachcountry, and to share the outcomes among themselves.
22. In order to promote a basin-wide planning for wastewater treatment, theparticipants pointed out the necessity to start a discussion to formulate acommon guideline in Southeast Asia in the future.

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