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In the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PRD), the services sector accounts for more than 41% of GDP and more than 80% of total trade (World Bank, 2021). Empirical studies show that most of the services trade occurs in the travel and tourism sectors, accounting for more than 50% of the total services trade in the Lao PDR. The services sector also plays an essential role in the Lao PDR’s wholesale and retail sectors, which employ the most significant number of people across all services sectors. The services trade balance was in a surplus between 1997 and 2011, though in 2012, it entered a significant deficit that continues to the present. This study investigates the link between services trade and economic growth in the Lao PDR, building on a recent analysis of the services trade in various economic and economic growth. The authors use econometric methods such as the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bound test and the Granger causality test to analyze time-series data for the Lao PDR from 1990 to 2019. The econometric results demonstrate the long-run relationship between economic growth and variables related to the services trade. This indicates the government and policymakers of the Lao PDR should invest in infrastructure, particularly in trade facilitation and the liberalization of the services sector, to facilitate the acceleration of economic growth.

The zero-waste term in municipal solid waste management has been the utopian objective of every waste management authority in the cities in developing countries, even though it comes with different perceptions, which are sometimes misguided. People can produce no waste unless they live with no consumption. The zero-waste term does not mean that we produce no waste, rather we dump no waste at the landfill site. It means we dispose of nothing at a landfill site since the issue of landfill site can be a culprit of waste management, for its reiterating city land demands that generate “headaches” to city authority because of NIMBYism (Not In My Back Yard issue). No one accepts living voluntarily next to a landfill site as it creates more harm than harmless. With zero waste at the landfill site in mind, the waste management authority attempts to deal with the complexity of municipal solid waste management, by reviving each element of the waste management stakeholders to concertedly move on to deal with waste. Individual households and communities, without which waste management will not be successful, were positioned as the main thrust of waste management. A multipronged approach was implemented with all stakeholders, i.e., lawmakers, regulators, waste producers, implementers, and pressure groups, appearing with different functions but a common point: zero waste at the landfill site. A stakeholder with a large capacity, i.e., local government focuses on creating a large project that has a large impact on overall waste management; private sectors may contribute to establishing recycling centers, and waste-to-energy projects. Meanwhile, the individual households, which are large in number but have a small capacity, establish community-based activities, i.e., waste banks. This chapter attempts to provide the overall picture of municipal solid waste management in 14 cities in developing countries toward their goal of zero waste at landfill sites.

This chapter uses a global trade model, supplemented with household survey data, to explore the potential impact of ASEAN trade liberalization on poverty in Cambodia, Lao PDR, Thailand, and Vietnam. Our tentative results suggest that ASEAN liberalization is likely to bring substantial gains to the region and lead to significant reductions in poverty. In a simulation of full removal of intra-ASEAN tariffs, we find 320,000 people are moved out of extreme poverty, with a further 1.4 million lifted above the $2 per day poverty line. Poverty reductions are particularly significant in the case of agricultural and rural diversified households and for Cambodia. Under broader ASEAN+3 and ASEAN+6 liberalizations, we find a similar pattern of poverty reduction and the overall reduction in poverty is much higher.

Development is a dynamic concept that pertains the evolution of human societies. Over the past few years policy makers, as well as academics, have incorporated a very important, yet sometimes neglected, component in the concept of development which is environmental costs and sustainability. One of the key aspects that affects sustainability is energetic consumption, therefore our aim is to determine if changes in oil, coal, and gas, prices during the period 2000–2010 influenced sustainable development.

We modified the Human Development Index (HDI) by adding energy consumption component, and propose what we call the Modified Human Sustainable Development Index (HSDI) which captures a broader definition of sustainable development. Then we employ econometric techniques to study the effects of changes in commodity prices on our index in the short run.

Our results show a nonlinear effect of commodity prices on our index, low and middle-income countries display a positive effect of prices on our HSDI, with smaller effects in the former ones, while high-income countries do not seem to exhibit a significant effect. While low and middle-income countries are typically commodity producers.

Middle-income countries are able to obtain larger benefits in terms of sustainable development due to a better institutional structure which constitutes an opportunity for them in the aftermath of the crisis.

Middle- and low-income countries should design policies that enable them to take advantage of the rises and protect their economies from the falls.

We address the problem of sustainable development and commodity prices in a post-crisi world, which was not reviewed in the literature. In addition we build a measurement of the Human Sustainable Development Index that considers energy consumption as one of its factors. Which is in line with previous results about energy consumption and the Human Development Index.

Tourism value chain (TVC) analysis has been widely used as an alternative approach for designing sustainable and inclusive programs for tourism development in Africa, Asia, and the Pacific. This chapter looks at the experiences of three sustainable tourism initiatives in the Philippines to assess the strengths and limitations of the value chain as a framework for destination development. Short case studies describe the experiences of stakeholders in two popular destinations in the Philippines: the surfing town of San Juan, La Union, and the resort-island of Panglao, Bohol. The third case study shares the perspective of the Transforming the Tourism Value Chain (TTVC) project, a national campaign for more sustainable hotels, resort as well as meetings, conventions, incentives, and event (MICE) facilities in various destinations around the country. Stakeholders deeply involved in implementing these projects share their insights on the successes, challenges, and limitations of TVC-based approaches to resilient and sustainable destination development. The destinations' experiences suggest that the advocacy for sustainable management and operations may be comparable to a process of technology adoption or acceptance along the TVC. Practical and theoretical recommendations for leveraging the TVC toward more holistic and sustainable visitor economies are given at the end of this chapter.

The late incorporation of Lao PDR in the globalized age as an agricultural producer and exporter has been created through the process of “peasantization” and restructuring of agricultural upland productive area. The chapter discusses the role of the state and cross-border markets through contract farming in three villages in northern Lao PDR. Contrary to the general belief that economic globalization will result in the weakening of the state, the chapter argues that the state still has a significant role to play. Being late in the corporation into the world market, the changes that take place become very intense.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) comprises 10 countries namely Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam (Fig. 1). The ASEAN region has a total land area of 4.5 million square kilometers (3.3% of the world total) and a coastline of 173,252 km (third longest in the world). It is a region that boasts of a wealth of biodiversity including 20 percent of all known plant, animal, and marine species and one-third or 284,000 km² of all coral reefs. Four biodiversity hotspots identified by Conservation International cut across a wide area of the region that includes Indo-Burma, the Philippines, Sundaland, and Wallacea.

Performance management is the ‘Achilles heel’ of many reforms and public management practices and requires changes. Governance in general and co-production in particular impose an organizational setting which requires rethinking performance management, which is still conceptually embedded in New Public Management paradigm. This chapter builds on the latest co-production framework and service-dominant logic and outlines new challenges for rethinking performance measurement and management. It also discusses how public service design (PSD) may interact with them. As a result the need to shift between performance control loops has been emphasized, suggesting that service design may significantly support internal ex-nunc performance management. Although it should be facilitated in addressing some of the performance challenges, an outline of a framework for appropriate method has also been proposed.