Funding shortfalls hinder new development bodies
Lack of funding is impeding a new – and potentially significant – mechanism for decentralising social services, a recent study has found.
The Asia Foundation study, “Municipal Governance in Myanmar: An Overview of Development Affairs Organizations”, was released on 1 September. The findings focus on development affairs organisations, or DAOs, which are a relatively new development borne out of the 2008 constitution and instituted in 2011. All of Myanmar’s townships now have DAOs.
These township-level groups are the only government agencies that answer to state and regional governments, rather than the Union government.
