At the request by the Governments of Lao PDR and Thailand to UN DESA, EAPD proposes to organize training workshops to forecast and run policy simulations to assess the socioeconomic impact of various policies. The expanded World Economic Forecasting Model (WEFM-e) developed by EAPD will be used by the policy makers to estimate possible impacts of infrastructure investment on achieving SDGs.

Goals and targets in the 2030 Agenda are interconnected, with possible synergies and trade-offs of policies that pursue the achievement of SDGs. WEFM-e has been as a macro forecasting model to analyse possible impacts of policy interventions on some of the SDG indicators. The Governments of Lao PDR and Thailand wish to benefit from using WEFM-e to formulate policies, maximizing the positive impacts of investment policies on SDGs, as well as avoiding risks.