This National Green Growth Strategy of the Lao PDR is the translation of the Resolution of the 10th Party Congress, the Vision 2030, the 10-Year Strategy (2016- 2025) and the 8 th Five-Year National Socio-Economic Development Plan (2016- 2020) into details. The main objectives are to develop the potential to integrate green growth into the formulation and implementation of sector and local strategies and plans to ensure achievement of long-term goals of national socioeconomic development set out by the Party and Government, such as: graduating from the status of least developed country (LDC) by 2020 and moving toward becoming an upper middle-income economy in accordance with green and sustainable direction and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030.
To achieve these objectives and goals, this National Green Growth Strategy of the Lao PDR has, therefore, examined and identified four cross-cutting areas, seven focused sectors for promotion and five supporting sectors. The four cross-cutting areas are:
- Improving the investment environment and management system to make it more efficient and effective;
- Ensuring rural development and poverty reduction to raise the living standard of the rural people and decrease the disparity between urban and rural areas, and to enable poor people in the rural areas to receive the benefits from the economic growth in an inclusive and fair manner;
- Gender roles that will particularly focus on raising the roles and promoting the advancement of women to decrease the differences between men and women in all socio-economic fields; and
- Decreasing the risks and vulnerability of the economy to the climate change and natural disasters.
The seven focused sectors are: (1) natural resources and environment, (2) agriculture and forestry, (3) industry and commerce, (4) energy and mines, (5) public works and transport, (6) information, culture and tourism, and (7) science and technology; and the five supporting or underpinning sectors are: (1) finance, (2) banking, (3) education and sports, (4) labour and social welfare, and (5) health.