Year: 2016

The reform process and the subsequent political and economic changes in Burma/Myanmar have sparked great investment interest among governments and the private sector in the region and beyond. Large-scale investment projects are focused on the borderlands, which is where most of the natural resources in Burma – and indeed the Mekong region – are to be […]

RANGOON — Last week, more than 10 Mon civil society organizations (CSO) demanded that the Mon State Chief Minister review the government’s plan to issue household registration cards to internal migrant workers who have moved from Upper Burma to work on rubber plantations and salt farms in Mon State. Naing Htun Myint, chairman of the […]

Recognising Gender in the National Land Use Policy What are the potential gender implications of the current land use policy draft in Myanmar? How might it be improved to promote and strengthen women’s land rights? Introduction The draft National Land Use Policy (NLUP) that was unveiled for public comment in October 2014 intends to create […]

The low-profile publication by Myanmar’s armed forces of a defense white Paper in February marked the first time that the Tatmadaw, as the military is known, released this type of strategy document to outsiders. The paper, which outlines the military’s broad plans for the coming years, is markedly more comprehensive than the last defense policy […]

Plan of Action Needed for Legal Reform, Minority Rights, Accountability (New York) ­– Burma’s new government led by the National League for Democracy (NLD) should signal human rights are a top priority by presenting a plan of action to begin long-needed reforms, Human Rights Watch said today in a letter to new president Htin Kyaw. […]

Rural development programmes to wean poppy farmers off their illicit crop contend with lack of roads, water and power in remote areas plagued by militias. U Bo sits on the floor of his bamboo hut and puts away a plastic tray covered with a small heap of what looks like sticky, brown tar. This is […]

What do gender equality advocates in Myanmar want from a nationwide ceasefire and does the existing nationwide ceasefire agreement deliver this? A new publication by UN Women, “The Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement in Myanmar: A Gender Equality and Women’s Rights Analysis”, explores this. Drawing on the perspectives of women in conflict-affected areas, the publication highlights the […]

The ongoing effects of climate change may lead to more severe conflicts around the world, with Myanmar especially vulnerable, according to a recent United Nations report. Myanmar has been identified as one of 20 countries in a “conflict-climate nexus”, the threatening combination of severe environmental vulnerability along with pre-existing social fragility and weak institutions. The […]

For the millions of Myanmar migrant workers living in Thailand, one of the many struggles is trying to figure out how to get their kids an education. Education centres, which, unlike Thai schools, are free to attend for Myanmar students, did not receive support from the Myanmar government last academic year and they are still […]

The United States has decided to place Myanmar on its global list of worst offenders in human trafficking, officials said, a move aimed at prodding the country’s new democratically elected government and its still-powerful military to do more to curb the use of child soldiers and forced labor. The reprimand of Myanmar comes despite U.S. […]

The Burmese military’s decision to abide by the outcome of the November 2015 general elections, which saw a landslide by the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD), led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, shows that the country’s emerging institutions—the constitution, parliament, and the party and election systems that were activated only during the political opening in […]

Maung Saung Kha is one of the first political activists sentenced since Aung San Suu Kyi took power in April. A court in Myanmar has sentenced a young poet to six months in jail for defaming former president Thein Sein, making him one of the first political activists sentenced since Nobel peace prize laureate Aung […]

KAWTHAUNG, Tanintharyi Division—The rumors we had heard that the remote Myeik archipelago was a difficult place to visit meant that we almost didn’t go. That would have been a big mistake. Getting to the departure point for our five day trip through some of the area’s 800-plus islands was just a plane ride from Yangon […]

In a Thai port dubbed ‘Little Burma’ the children of Myanmar migrant workers peer at white boards carrying the distinctive looping characters of their parents’ language. Enrolment at the school, the first in the fishing hub of Samut Sakhon to offer a Myanmar curriculum including reading and writing, is surging as migrants wearied by the […]

BANGKOK — Myanmar recognizes 135 ethnic groups within its borders. But the people who constitute No. 136? They are the people-who-must-not-be-named. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of Myanmar’s first democratically elected government since 1962, embraced that view last week when she advised the United States ambassador against using the term “Rohingya” to describe […]