Building human resources’ capabilities is one of the challenges in the countries of Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS), especially with the coming ASEAN Economic Community (AEC). With the lack of young researchers in the region, Mekong Institute (MI) together with the New Zealand Embassy in Bangkok initiated the Mekong Institute – New Zealand Ambassador’s Scholarship program (MINZAS) in 2012, which aims at building the research capacity of young researchers among the countries of Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar and Thailand (CLMT).