Luang Prabang — a UNESCO World Heritage city and Laos’s foremost tourism destination — faces growing pressure on its urban environment from rapid population growth, expanding visitor numbers, and the infrastructure demands of a modernizing economy. To address these challenges, ADB initiated the Urban Environment Improvement Investment Project (UEII) under its South-East Asia Urban Services Facility (SURF), aimed at supporting the Government of Lao PDR in ensuring that urban services in Luang Prabang are delivered in a sustainable, resilient, and inclusive manner. The proposed project targets three interconnected outputs: improved urban infrastructure encompassing drainage systems, solid waste management, and upgraded streetscapes; a strengthened policy, regulatory, and financial framework for the city’s urban and tourism services; and enhanced women’s participation in MPWT employment and leadership. The project preparation assignment, Task Order No. 11 under SURF, tasked the consulting team with developing the analytical, technical, and safeguard foundations needed to bring this investment for ADB Board approval, working across a 14-month engagement with a 2040 design horizon.

LCG participated as subconsultant to Egis (France) on the primary SURF Task Order engagement, supplying a national multidisciplinary team to support the international consultants across the full range of project preparation activities. LCG’s team contributed to situation analysis; identification and development of two urban development scenarios for the 2040 design horizon; preparation of an investment roadmap and confirmation of infrastructure component scope; comprehensive city surveys covering technical, environmental, and social safeguard dimensions; preparation of gender analysis, gender action plan, poverty reduction and social strategy, community participation plan, and stakeholder communication strategy; economic and financial analyses including review of the financial management capacity of executing and implementing agencies; feasibility studies and preliminary designs for three subprojects; facilitation of project preparation workshops; and preparation of the Report and Recommendation of the President (RRP) and linked project documentation.

Beyond the main SURF contract, LCG was separately engaged to deliver four specialist survey and study components that fed directly into the project’s technical and safeguard evidence base: a geotechnical survey to inform subproject foundation and infrastructure design; a tourist tax study to assess revenue mechanisms for financing urban service improvements and infrastructure O&M; water quality and environmental surveys to characterize baseline conditions in Luang Prabang’s waterways and surrounding environment; and an avian survey to identify bird species presence and habitat sensitivity within and around the proposed project areas, in support of ADB’s biodiversity safeguard requirements.

LCG’s contribution across both the primary SURF engagement and its four specialist subcontracts helped build the comprehensive evidence base and project documentation needed to advance the Luang Prabang Urban Environmental Improvement Investment Project through ADB’s project cycle. The work directly supports a planned investment that will upgrade drainage, solid waste, and urban infrastructure in one of Southeast Asia’s most culturally significant cities — improving conditions for residents and visitors alike while strengthening the institutional and financial foundations for long-term sustainable urban service delivery.