2nd Asian Development Bank High-Level Workshop on Inland Waterway Transport
15 July 2013 – 16 July 2013 – Manila, Philippines
Many Asian countries have networks of rivers and canals that can support inland navigation. However, until now, this potential has remained underdeveloped, especially due to a lack of interest from national policies compared with other transport modes, but also to a lack of investment in infrastructure and services.
Noting the large opportunity for work in this area, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) organized an international workshop in Chongqing, Peoples Republic of China (PRC) in September 2012 to provide a forum for ADB developing member countries to share experiences on how to realize the potential of Inland navigation. Building on the findings of the Chongqing workshop, a second inland waterway workshop has taken place on July 15th and 16th 2013 in Manila, Philippines to further facilitate the advancement of support for IWT.
The main objective of this second workshop was to bring together a select group of DMCs and ADB staff (at Sector Director and Country Director level) to identify concrete opportunities in IWT that can be developed into investment projects to be supported by ADB and/or other funding organizations. The intention was to further screen such opportunities, and develop a number of them into actual projects over the next two years. Speakers from Canada (St. Lawrence), USA (Mississippi), Europe (Central Commission for the Navigation on the Rhine), and PRC (Yangtze) have been given the possibility to present their own experience and to share best practices.
The success of this second high level workshop should pave the way for next constructive meetings to enhance IWT in the regions concerned. The participants of the World Wide Inland Navigation Network (WWINN) will be kept informed, enabling them to contribute to the respective initiatives.
CCNR