Myanmar's Long Road to National Reconciliation (43 page)

2.   Second, international NGOs need to invest more in developing the capacity of their own staff. There is a shortage of middle management — people with the skills to manage and deliver aid and with the ability to pass on such skills to local organizations. Again, the raw material is there, but few organizations have the time or the money to undertake the necessary training. This outcome is largely a result of the nature of donor funding, which is currently very much related to HIV/AIDS and, increasingly, to “hot issues” such as people trafficking, and which is very short-term in focus. International NGOs such as World Vision Myanmar are fortunate in that they have the base funding now to develop longer-term strategies. Most international NGOs do not have that luxury. Donors need to identify capacity-building for the local staff of international NGOs as a key priority.

3.   Third, international NGO programs must begin to focus more and more on building the capacity of their local partners, rather than their own institutional capabilities. World Vision Myanmar now has a local staff of well over 250 people, and while it and other larger international NGOs deliver good services to communities, there is a danger that staff will become more concerned with the propagation of their own programs rather than with investment in grass-roots community capacity for sustainable development. With over 214,000 community-based organizations and local NGOs in the country, there is great need for such investment. Where there are no existing local groups it is possible to create CBOs and provide them with ongoing support, as World Vision has done. This can and should be done with the full knowledge and sanction of the authorities. Such a process, however, would also require a departure from the present donor priorities and a move towards
investing in longer-term mechanisms that seek to develop local capacities and grass-roots democratic decision-making processes.

Finally, it is vital to accept the limitations of this approach — that action must start in a small way, and that it will not be possible for civil society groups to challenge the government openly or to hold the Myanmar authorities accountable for the rule of law.

In the words of Seng Raw from the Metta Foundation, one of the more established local NGOs: “There is currently a window of opportunity to help build capacity and work directly with local communities. Let us start to make our own decisions about development.”

The people of Myanmar, who join so positively in international NGO programs, are clearly looking to international NGOs to help them develop the capacities to deal with the many serious problems they face, problems that cannot be solved by Myanmar Government efforts alone. The Myanmar authorities themselves, more than at any time in their past, seem prepared to acknowledge that international NGOs have a substantive role to play in Myanmar. Without such programs and capacity-building, the essential characteristics of civil society that must form a key element in the democratic Myanmar of the future cannot be built.

¹
   I must point out here that this experience contradicted what I observed generally happened in such a case; usually people would appear from nowhere and happily offer their assistance.

²
   J. Manor, M. Robinson and G. White,
Civil Society and Governance: A Concept Paper
(Brighton: Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, 1999), p. 1.

³
   Ibid., pp. 4, 5.

⁴
   David Steinberg, “A Void in Myanmar: Civil Society in Burma”, in
Strengthening Civil Society in Burma: Possibilities and Dilemmas for International NGOs,
edited by T. Kramer and P. Vervest for Burma Center Netherlands & Transnational Institute (BCN/TNI) (Chiengmai: Silkworm Books, 1999), p. 2. See also David Steinberg, “Approaching Burma/Myanmar: Foreign Policy Dilemmas”, Lecture Transcript, Monash University, Melbourne, 1999.

⁵
   Steinberg, “A Void in Myanmar: Civil Society in Burma”, p.
3.

⁶
   Mark Duffield, quoted in M. Smith, “Ethnic Conflict and the Challenge of Civil Society in Burma”, in
Strengthening Civil Society in Burma: Possibilities and Dilemmas for International NGOs,
edited by T. Kramer and P. Vervest for Burma Center Netherlands & Transnational Institute (BCN/TNI), (Chiengmai: Silkworm Books, 1999), p. 21.

⁷
   Martin Smith, “Ethnic Conflict and the Challenge of Civil Society in Burma”, in
Strengthening Civil Society in Burma: Possibilities and Dilemmas for International NGOs,
edited by T. Kramer and P. Vervest for Burma Center Netherlands & Transnational Institute (BCN/TNI), (Chiengmai: Silkworm Books, 1999), pp. 15–53.

⁸
   Zunetta Liddell, “No Room to Move: Legal Constraints on Civil Society in Burma”, in
Strengthening Civil Society in Burma: Possibilities and Dilemmas for International NGOs,
edited by T. Kramer and P. Vervest for Burma Center Netherlands & Transnational Institute (BCN/TNI), (Chiengmai: Silkworm Books, 1999), p. 54.

⁹
   M. Purcell, “Axe-Handles or Willing Minions? International NGOs in Burma”, in
Strengthening Civil Society in Burma: Possibilities and Dilemmas for International NGOs,
edited by T. Kramer and P. Vervest for Burma Center Netherlands & Transnational Institute (BCN/TNI), (Chiengmai: Silkworm Books, 1999), p. 124.

¹⁰
   International Crisis Group,
Myanmar: The Role of Civil Society,
Asia Report No. 27 (Bangkok/Brussels: International Crisis Group, 6 December 2001).

¹¹
   See, for example, Steinberg, “A Void in Myanmar: Civil Society in Burma”.

¹²
   International Crisis Group,
Myanmar: The Role of Civil Society,
p. ii.

¹³
   Ashley South, “Roadmaps and Political Transition in Burma: The Need for Two-Way Traffic”, 2003, p. 1. Available at:
http:/www.ibiblio.org/obl/docs/Ashley-South_Political_Transition.htm
. Accessed 17 May 2005.

¹⁴
   International Crisis Group,
Myanmar: Aid To The Border Areas,
Asia Report No. 82 (Yangon/Brussels: International Crisis Group, 9 September 2004).

¹⁵
   Ibid., p. ii.

¹⁶
   International Crisis Group,
Myanmar: The Role of Civil Society,
p. 21.

¹⁷
   Paulo Freire,
Pedagogy of the Oppressed
(Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972), p. 25.

¹⁸
   According to David Steinberg’s presentation at the Burma Update conference held in Canberra in November 2004 (see
Chapter 8
).

¹⁹
   
Directory of Local Non-Governmental Organizations in Myanmar, March 2004
(Yangon, n.d.). A companion compilation is the
Directory of International Non-Government Organizations (international NGOs) and Red Cross Movement Organizations Working in Myanmar,
compiled by International NGOs, Yangon, August 2004.

²⁰
   Not all international NGOs in the country are registered, so this figure is necessarily vague. By comparison, however, there are over 200 international NGOs working in Cambodia.

²¹
   As reported in “World Vision Myanmar Annual Report, 2003”.

²²
   As observed by the author, who conducted the final evaluation for the program.

²³
   For example, as reported in the end of project evaluation of the Kawthaung HIV/AIDS Prevention and Care Project in 1999, funded by the Australian Government.

²⁴
   A body administered by UNAIDS that receives funding from of a range donors, including a number of government aid agencies from member-states of the European Union.

²⁵
   The AusAID-funded Burma Youth HIV/AIDS Training and Support Facility began in January 2003, and Burnet’s FHAM funded initiatives began in October 2004.

²⁶
   J. Vichit-Vadakarn, “Civil Society: Diverse Forms and Multiple Constituencies”, 2003. Available at:
www.ids.ac.uk/ids/civsoc/PolicyBriefs/policy.html
. Accessed 17 May 2005.

²⁷
   Purcell, “Axe-Handles or Willing Minions?

David Tegenfeldt

In an April 2003 editorial on how to support the establishment of a liberal, constitutional democracy in Iraq, David Plotz asserts that “there’s a tendency in democracy-building to mistake elections for a stable democratic government”.
¹
Plotz states that, prior to the holding of national elections, the hard work of building integrity and trust in the rule of law, establishing checks and balances through the diffusion of power to independent commissions, and the development of associations and civil society, needs to be undertaken. Indeed, transforming situations of repression and protracted conflict into situations where diversity and difference is productively managed, is the challenge to peace-builders everywhere. In our increasingly diverse and complex world, the need to be able to deal constructively with our differences is of paramount importance. In few places is this challenge greater and more complex than what is faced in present-day Myanmar.

After six decades of armed conflict — starting from the Japanese invasion of British colonial Burma in 1942 and continuing through insurgency and counter-insurgency up until the present time — and after four decades of relative isolation from and by the international community, Myanmar finds itself significantly lagging behind its neighbours on most socio-economic indices. Poverty, health, and education indicators show significant suffering by the population, with ethnic minority populations experiencing the most dire situations — particularly as a result of the decades of armed conflict in their regions.

During the Ne Win era, from the early 1960s until the beginning of the 1990s, civil society organizations were dismantled and any organizational activity outside the sphere of government was tightly constrained. From the early 1990s, in a departure from the policy of the Ne Win era, Myanmar’s military government has gradually opened up space for international and domestic humanitarian development agencies to provide assistance to improve the plight of the people. Over the past dozen years, the number of international development agencies operating in Myanmar has grown to number around fifty, and the number of informal and registered domestic organizations has increased as well. Though the scope of work being undertaken by these humanitarian development agencies continues to widen, the need far surpasses the available resources.