Inclusive Democratic Development in Burma/Myanmar

This project aims to enhance inclusive democratic development in Myanmar by strengthening citizen engagement deepening trust and understanding of democratic systems and building the capacity of communities to participate in their own development. The project targets over 320 000 people in Myanmar and 110 000 Burmese refugees outside the country. Activities include: (1) organizing workshops on human rights including women’s rights; (2) training media workers from ethnic minority media organizations; (3) supporting the production of publications on key development issues (human rights environmental protection gender equality etc.); (4) training community-level basic health workers to improve decentralized health service delivery; (5) supporting multi-stakeholder consultations to share experiences on participatory community-based and decentralized health care delivery; (6) training refugees and internally displaced people in entrepreneurship livelihood skills and democratic governance to facilitate reintegration into Myanmar; and (7) supporting small-scale locally-initiated projects in Myanmar to strengthen community capacity to implement development activities using democratic approaches.

The expected intermediate outcomes for this project include: (1) improved democratic governance practices allowing citizens and their civil society organizations to contribute to and influence local and national policies; (2) improved decentralized governance and services in areas where ethnic minorities are the majority; and (3) enhanced participation of marginalized and conflict-impacted communities in local development.