Students return home from school in Tachilek, Myanmar. Photo by United Nations Photo, via Flickr. Licensed under CC-BY-ND-2.0.PopulationThe 2014 Myanmar Population and Housing Census show that Myanmar’s total population was 51.48 million. This number includes an estimated 1.2 million people who were not enumerated in ...

A lack of legitimate job opportunities in Myanmar has contributed to a shadow economy of informal or illegal labor, operating both within and outside the country’s national borders. Informal labor is prevalent in a range of economic sectors and affects a broad spectrum of demographics.Human ...

Sustainable Development Goal 5 (SDG5) focuses on gender equality and women’s  empowerment, breaking down this topic into nine goals with 14 associated targets. These targets cover discrimination in workplaces and homes, property rights, education and a broad range of other topics related to gender. Goals ...

Myanmar has historically been an agrarian society, meaning that agriculture the agriculture sector accounts for the majority of the country’s economic output.  The 2003 Myanmar Agricultural Census showed that there were about 3.46 million farm families, cultivating about 8.7 million hectares of land.88 The estimated annual ...

Introduction The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) published a set of guidelines for member nations (which include Myanmar, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, and Lao PDR) to implement Special Economic Zones in 2016.117 The guidelines are divided into five chapters that contain eighteen different points in total.118 Generally, the ...

Under the 2008 constitution drafted by the military, Myanmar is defined as a unitary parliamentary republic. Myanmar’s nominal head of state is Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Laureate. The Myanmar military, headed by Snr. General Min Aung Hlaing, still hold much authority over ...

A Special Economic Zone (SEZ) is an area within or across national boundaries that is administered under special rules. They come in different forms, which in Myanmar include free zones and promotion zones, as well as the potential for the creation of other types of ...

Importance of Environmental Impact Assessment System Myanmar has relied heavily on natural resource exploitation to sustain economic growth, but this has come at the expense of the environment. Environmental governance is low, and Myanmar ranked 138 out of 180 countries in regard to how well the ...

There is room for improvement in Myanmar’s tax system. The Union faces many challenges in both collecting tax revenue from both citizens and organisations, as well as distributing this income to where it is needed. This affects the state’s ability to govern effectively. Tax reform ...

Migrant workers from Laos and Myanmar line up to collect donations after the 2011 floods. Photo by ILO in Asia and the Pacific, Flickr, taken 25 November 2011. Licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.Migration between Myanmar and the other states of the Greater Mekong Sub region ...

Coping with the COVID-19 Pandemic in Myanmar COVID-19 has impacted all of the countries in the Mekong Region, including Myanmar. The government has responded through a range of policy and legislative measures. Responses to COVID-19 has had economic impact, social impact, and environmental impact. Businesses have been ...

Official Development Aid into the five countries of the Lower Mekong Basin accounts for just 1% of the world’s total. While Thailand began paying back its ODA debt in 2000, the amount of ODA to the four other countries increased between 2004 and 2013. ...

Important Laws, Regulations, and Policies 1992 Forest Law (amended 2018): includes sharing responsibility for management with communities 1994 Protection of Wildlife and Conservation of Natural Areas Law 1995 Forest Rules (updated 2019)  1995 Forest Policy 1995 Community Forest Instruction (amended 2016, repealed 2019) 2012 Environmental Conservation Law (amended 2018) 2012 Vacant, Fallow ...

Introduction Myanmar is preparing for a multi-party democratic general election, to be held on 8 November 2020.426 Some count this as the country’s third multi-party election427, but some external observers count it as the second428. The current Hluttaw’s term will end on 31 January 2021. 93 ...

What is mitigation? The impacts of climate change are undeniable. Mitigation and adaptation actions must be taken to address these consequences. So, clarifying what mitigation and adaptation actually means is necessary. Flooding on the Mekong River floodplain, Thailand and Laos. Photo by NASA Johnson, Flickr. Uploaded ...

Infrastructure development has both positive and negative impacts on many different communities. Such development can take up large amounts of land and require many people to move. They impact various segments of communities differently, especially women. For instance, women are rarely represented in public participation ...

The UN Migration Agency defines a migrant as “any person who is moving or has moved across an international border or within a State away from his/her habitual place of residence, regardless of (1) the person’s legal status; (2) whether the movement is voluntary or ...

State land leases and concessions in Laos are an economic arrangement in which the Lao Government rents state land at a yearly fee to both domestic and foreign investors for a wide range of economic activities including, but not limited to, agricultural and tree plantations, ...