PREPARING FOR MYANMAR’S POST-CONFLICT FUTURE
According to the United Nations, an estimated 20 million people – more than one third of Myanmar’s population – are in need of humanitarian aid. ASEAN’s relief efforts to Myanmar are channelled through the ASEAN Coordinating Centre on Humanitarian Assistance on Disaster Management (AHA Centre).
However, the AHA Centre’s effectiveness is constrained by its intergovernmental nature of working and limited experience with politically driven humanitarian crises. In 2023, an ASEAN aid convoy was attacked in Myanmar’s southern Shan state, highlighting the security risks.
Some ASEAN members have begun working around those limitations. Thailand, for instance, initiated a cross-border humanitarian corridor last year to deliver aid directly to Myanmar. But as the crisis persists, the humanitarian fallout is no longer confined within Myanmar’s borders. A growing number of people are fleeing conflict and forced conscription, seeking better education and livelihood opportunities in neighbouring countries. The strain on regional resources has become more urgent with recent funding cuts to programmes and activities supported by USAID.
The situation requires incoming ASEAN chairs, starting with Malaysia in 2025, to consider more innovative ways for humanitarian assistance to reach all affected communities in Myanmar, including those displaced along its borders with Bangladesh and India. The Rohingya crisis, which has been on ASEAN’s agenda since 2017, remains unresolved, and repatriation efforts appear even more uncertain amid the conflict.
Experts have emphasised the need to start working with and empowering locally led efforts and networks, rather than waiting for violence to end. At the same time, the new profile of Myanmar migrants in neighbouring countries requires considering how their collective skills and expertise can benefit a host country’s economy and society.
Capacity-building and leadership training may sound intuitive or even trite. Even so, initiatives to prepare Myanmar’s people to shape the future they envision must take into account the emergence of new governance and administrative actors amid conflict in areas that are contesting or liberated from SAC control.
Myanmar’s future policymakers must rethink how they will pursue governance, judiciary and legal systems in a functioning federal system, as well as the many sectors – especially health and education – that require a skilled, competent workforce.
Source: CNA
