LWRN Introduction and background
Increasing influence of fisheries and farmers communities in decision making processes in water governance of the Mekong rivers basins is high on the agenda of the Southeast Asia regional strategies as well as country strategies of theMekong countries. Therefore in February 2012, ON South East Asia bureau in close consultation with Oxfam Australia as the lead of the water governance JRAS and WWF Greater Mekong Program, who has been identified as a key partner in this work bymid 2011,  submitted a concept note in response to the European Commission Call on Food Security Thematic Programme (FTSP). In this concept note, we have consulted three national rivers networks partners, two from the Mekong countries (CEPA in Cambodia asthe representative of the Rivers Coalition Cambodia and Lao Water Resources Network/LWRN) and one partner from Myanmar, representing the Salween River, the Karen Rivers Watch (KRW), officially represented by KESAN. We were unfortunately not able to include Vietnam in the concept note as the Call was restricted to the least developed countries. However at a later stage, during the full proposal development, we are able toinclude activities and linking and learning with Vietnam, regional NGO actors and academicians, based in Vietnam, Thailand and researchers from China, i.e. International Rivers, Vietnam Rivers Network, Thai Peoples Mekong Network, TERRA, Burma Rivers Network, Salween Watch and Save the Mekong Coalition. The three national rivers networks partners are considered important in this proposal, both as the partners and direct target group of the proposed project. The EC proposal had a time period foreseen of 4 years, January 1, 2013  December 31, 2016.
The title of the Action: Community Engagement in Governance of Mekong and Salween River Basins (CEGOMAS).
The objective of the Action is as follows:
To contribute to an increased influence of 513,500 poor and vulnerable farmers and fishers on the Governance of the Water Resources in the Salween and Mekong River Basins that support their food security and nutrition.
The Specific objectives are:
Specific Objective 1 (SO1): Three networks and member organizations of farmers and fishers have the  organizational capacity and knowledge to address, while representing their constituency, national and regional needs for good governance and sustainable management of water resources;
Specific Objective 2 (SO2): Improved dialogue and policy influencing space of three networks of farmers and fishersat national and regional levels related to the development of water resources.

Lao Water ResourcesNetwork (LWRN) is a newly founded network of committed individual members from national Non Profit Associations (NPAs) and locally based international NGOs. These individuals share similar vision around the importance of water resources for the food security and livelihoods of the riparian communities. While the network at present is a voluntary loose network, each individual member becomes agateway through its affiliated organisation to the established engagement with farmers and fishers groups.
Current contract is in place: A-02588-02-501623 for the period of September 1, 2012 to December 31, 2013.

The one year support for the three national rivers network and WWF GMPO will cover the following areas, for the period of November 1, 2012 to October 31, 2013. This will be done in close coordination with Oxfam Australia:
1. Full fledged baseline of the partners influencing/advocacy and network capacities and skills to be able to engage in regional level dialogue/decision making processes.
2. Pilot work: this may slightly vary among partners, but in line to the activities proposed in the EC proposal/CEGOMAS (i.e. Xao Baan research, downstream impact research, RSAT inception/implementation workshop). The objective is to have one inspiring pilot activity or research successfully carried out and documented per country, to have a strong scale up component in our next proposal.
3. Some relevant but limitedengagement at regional level(some activities of specific objective 2, such as attending international/regional conference, which ideally will be attended by the three rivers network partners).
4. (Four monthly) internal reflection session for each network and the members and an end of yearevaluation process. The internal reflection session will inform the end-of-year  evaluation process. Some of the objectives of having these reflection moments are to share: a) the progress of data gathering/researchand influencing activities at national level; b)the needs and challenges of each network (internal and externally) and how to address these (the capacity needs of each network andthe members, how effective/sensitive is the influencing work at national level and how to best scale this up at regional level); c)how the hydropower tools help the influencing work of each network.
5. External funding activities: strengthening areas scoring lowin our proposal submission, i.e. sustainability, impact, replication. It is the hope that each of the consortium members, the threenational rivers networks including OAU, ON and WWF GMPO are proactively advocating our joint effort, however we also would like to make sure that a consultant will be committed to carry out this activities in collaboration with each partner, collating the baseline and progress to date and actively carrying out fundraising efforts. A draft ToR for the consultant will be jointly developed at a later stage, and the consultant will be housedby WWF GMPO.

Lao Water Resources Network (LWRN)
In the coming year, LWRN will deliverthe following outcomes:
Outcome 1: Three networks and member organizations of farmers and fishers have the organizational capacity and knowledge to address, while representing their constituency, national and regional needs for good governance and sustainable management of water resources.
Outcome 2: Improved dialogue and policy influencing space of three networks of farmers and fishers at national and regional levels related to the development of water resources.

Total amount of the water governance work in Laos is EUR 69,574.