Baseline Assessment Report : Economic Development and Land Use

Myanmar, the largest country in Southeast Asia, has the least developed economy in the region(UNDP 2013) despite having some abundant natural resources and a relatively low populationdensity. The current level of development is illustrated by Myanmar’s substantial shortfall in energy supply, with only 33 percent of households connected to grid electricity supply.Recognising that access to electricity is an important pillar in raising livelihoods (particularly in rural areas where 70 percent of Myanmar’s poor live) and achieving broad economic development, the Government of Myanmar (GoM) aims to rapidly increase power generation and electrification across the country over the next 10-20 years to provide affordable and reliable energy. Key sector targets include increasing national generation capacity by 500-1,000 MW per year over the next 10 years to reach 16,665 MW of installed capacity, and increasing the electrification rate to 75 percent by 2021/2022, then to 100 percent by 2030, and increasing increase energy exports to increase foreign exchange earnings. In response to the increasing challenges of hydropower planning in Myanmar, and recognising the opportunity to develop a sustainable hydropower sector, GoM, through a partnership between the Ministry of Electricity and Energy (MOEE) and Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Conservation (MONREC), with support from the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the Australian Government, conducted this Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) of the national hydropower sector as the first stage in basin-wide planning.Myanmar is in a unique position of being able to develop hydropower in an integrated and sustainable manner before significant impacts occur to river systems, balancing the generation of substantial renewable energy to drive the economy and improve livelihoods with the retention of important biophysical processes and values and socio-economic benefits for current and future generations.