Social development

This month, the World Bank published a proposal for a $100 million development project in Rakhine state, the region of western Myanmar that recently saw the systematic ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya Muslim community. The aim of the project is to fund credit for small businesses in ...

Myanmar, nudged by the conscience of the world, recently released two Reuters journalists imprisoned for more than 500 days – good news in what otherwise has been a dismal period for media freedom. The 2019 Press Freedom Index by Reporters Without Borders shows how hatred of journalists has degenerated into violence ...

Suriyan “Hook” Kla-thalae, a 36-year-old Moken born on Koh Surin, keeps dreaming that he’ll get his community’s boat, known as a kabang, back out on the Andaman Sea.  But it remains anchored on shore on the island, which lies 60 kilometres off the Phang Nga coast, ...

Reuters reporters U Wa Lone and U Kyaw Soe Oo were recently released from prison in Myanmar. They spent 16 months behind bars on charges related to their reporting on the Inn Din massacre of Rohingya civilians in September 2017. Their imprisonment and the Myanmar courts’ repeated rulings against their appeals ...

Mr. Niwat Roykaew, founder of the Rak Chiang Khong Group in northern Thailand, has shared a letter he received on behalf of the Network of Thai People in Eight Mekong Provinces from Mr. Don Pramudwinai, the Thai Minister of Foreign Affairs, that confirms media reports in March ...

The ten signatories to the National Cease fire Agreement started a five-day meeting at Chiang Mai from May 14-18 to discuss about the agreement and how to move the peace process forward. It looks that having been brought into the “bag”, the smaller groups which have ...

Special Rapporteur, Rhona Smith, completed her seventh visit to Cambodia this week. In her final report on the situation of human rights in Cambodia, Smith called on the government to improve its human rights record around freedom of assembly, inclusive development, press freedom and unlawful detention. At the ...

Twelve indigenous communities in Cambodia’s northeastern province of Ratanakiri scored a major victory today when the government announced it was returning to them 20 spirit mountains and dozens of other spiritually significant areas that had been grabbed by the Vietnamese agribusiness giant Hoang Anh Gia ...

Marie Puyessegur explores events in part one of a three-part series conducted as part of the MEMORY! Heritage Film Festival, an annual event in Yangon.  The festival’s 2018 edition focused on the theme of Freedom of the Press and Democracy in their representation through cinema, and was ...

The Dhanin Tawee Chearavanont Foundation today became the first private sector partner to support the Global Fund’s largest regional initiative to eliminate drug-resistant malaria in the Greater Mekong. With a contribution of US$2 million over two years, the Thai-based private family foundation will support the Global ...