The fellowship programme is now on its second cycle (2002-2003). The fellows in the second batch are 17 journalists and photographers — five from Cambodia, three from China, two from Laos, three from Thailand, three from Burma, and one from Vietnam.

Their work, as with that of the first batch of 16 fellows, will be uploaded regularly on this website.

CONCEPT

The Mekong subregion is a rich region within mainland South-east Asia, with millions of people in countries divided by and at the same linked by land borders that have hastened the sharing of natural resources, economic integration as well as development challenges.

The region is bound by common elements like the Mekong river, all of 4,800 kilometres that is often considered the soul of mainland South-east Asia. The 'Mother of Rivers' flows from the Tibetan plateau, down to China's Yunnan province and on to Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam.

In this increasingly integrated subregion of 240 million people, land boundaries mean more mobility for people, trade and culture; and the Mekong river means the countries are linked by shared natural and economic resources.

Several other characteristics make the region a fertile area for social investigation through in-depth journalism — one that develops well-rounded regional stories with people's voices in order to influence awareness and socio-economic change.

First, a sizable part of the Mekong subregion has in the last decade gone into economic liberalisation at a time when the rest of Asia were busy grappling with globalisation. In a sense, these countries, especially the former centrally planned economies, went into free-market changes capitalism and globalisation at the same time.

Today, more than a decade after these countries took the free-market path, it is an opportune time to look at where the region is in terms of human development and economic development models. The experience of the past years gives room to look at where countries can steer their development engines to — have they learned lessons from other countries in Asia, like Thailand? Do they offer any new formulas? What are the common challenges brought about by economic and social integration amid globalisation?

Second, the Mekong subregion has been the target of development projects and foreign business ventures, being one of the last frontiers to be opened up after the ideological divide of the Cold War withered away in this part of the world.

Thus there is the 'Greater Mekong Subregion', consisting of 2.3 million sq km and some 240 million people and grouping the six areas linked by the Mekong. As a 1997 report by the Asian Development Bank said, "Deservedly, the GMS is increasingly recognised as the new frontier of the East Asian miracle."

But regional integration and the cross-border nature of life in many parts of the Mekong subregion has also highlighted the impact of globalisation. The opening of borders has facilitated not just the movement of people for everyday contact and commerce, but for migration and trafficking, smuggling.

Common borders also mean shared environmental problems like deforestation, and disasters like floods. Projects like dams may bring benefit to some countries upstream of the Mekong and trouble to those downstream.

The mixture of globalisation, economic transition, land borders and shared resources make for a region that is a good vantage point from which to see the effects of economic and social change. Today, it is time to ask what people think of this process, what changes it has brought to their lives, what their common problems are and how to tackle them — what their vision of the Mekong subregion is.

Many of the projects designed for the Mekong region, be they dams or transport or tourism infrastructure, were bruited about as economic lifelines. But this business-driven vision often has not had enough input from the communities themselves, and has often resulted in different, even conflicting, impacts across countries.

The socio-economic changes in the Mekong subregion are parts of a shared whole, going beyond political boundaries, national planning and national solutions. They need to be discussed not only by governments but by affected communities, regardless of the country they belong to. After a decade of change, it is a good time to revisit the Mekong concept.

This fellowship aims to looks at cross-border issues in the Mekong subregion at a time of globalisation — by having journalists shed off the national boundaries that normally dictate coverage.

It also designed as a venue for Mekong journalists to tell the world about issues and events in the region they come from, build their capacity, exposure and strength in 'reporting from within'.