While major strides need to be taken to promote inclusive growth, critical developments across the country’s economy continue to heighten investor appetite. This was given a significant boost with the victory of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) over the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) in the November 2015 national elections. The NLD is expected to build upon efforts taken by outgoing President U Thein Sein to improve transparency, promote peace and increase spending on health and education, which have to some degree alleviated the strain left behind by decades of military rule. With the incoming NLD administration expected to prioritise inclusive growth, the outlook for all segments of Myanmar’s population is looking significantly more positive.

In 2016 and 2017, in response to small attacks by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, Myanmar’s armed forces launched “area clearance operations” against the Rohingya minority in Rakhine State—a response the U.S. government has called ethnic cleansing. This report explores the structure, training, and ethos of Myanmar’s armed forces to clarify the implications and challenges of, and the prospects for, finding constructive ways forward as well as an accounting for the past. Drawing on an in-depth review of the literature, extensive field experience, and interviews, the report is published by the United States Institute of Peace. Myanmar’s military leaders have long been haunted by the prospect that one day they may lose the power to control events and be brought before a court to account for their actions, and those of their subordinates. They have had good reason to be concerned.

This book is about the politics of Myanmar under the reformist president Thein Sein. After taking office in March 2011, Thein Sein initiated the bloodless Myanmar Spring. He was able to transform Myanmar into a more transparent and dynamic society, bring Aung San Suu Kyi and other opposition activists into the political process, initiate a peace process with the ethnic armed organizations, reintegrate Myanmar into the international community after five decades of isolation, and, most importantly, for the first time since the country regained independence in 1948, he was able to enact the peaceful transfer of power from one elected government to another. But Thein Sein also lost opportunities to deliver what the people anticipated, and he failed to bring his USDP party to victory in the 2015 election. This book is not about the successes of the Thein Sein administration. Rather, it examines the reasons behind the lost opportunities in the transition to democracy. It draws on the author’s experiences as a member of Thein Sein’s cabinet as well as on extensive interviews with other cabinet members and politicians involved in the crucial events that took place between 2010 and 2016. The book is a must-read for anyone interested in this critical period of change for Myanmar.

With motivated human resources and a rich natural bounty, Myanmar is expected to take off with sustained growth and eventually attain a unique welfare state. On the basis of the authors’ field surveys and innumerable dialogues with public officials, private professionals, scholars, and others, in addition to intensive desk studies since around 2000, the present volume lays out the essential ingredients for drawing a roadmap to realise the above-mentioned objective. That goal is, specifically, financial development, adequate social capital, indigenous modern manufactures and closer international tie-ups, among others, but above all, sound agrarian development. An effort has been made to place the required ingredients in their historical contexts, as historical experiences constitute an important sociopolitical condition in which development takes place. Myanmar nationals and readers concerned with the country’s economic progress are encouraged to give serious, sustained thought to coming up with a socially supportable roadmap for the country's development path. The present volume provides valuable hints for that purpose.

As Myanmar’s military adjusts to life with its former opponents holding elected office, Conflict in Myanmar showcases innovative research by a rising generation of scholars, analysts and practitioners about the past five years of political transformation. Each of its seventeen chapters, from participants in the 2015 Myanmar Update conference held at the Australian National University, builds on theoretically informed, evidence-based research to grapple with significant questions about ongoing violence and political contention. The authors offer a variety of fresh views on the most intractable and controversial aspects of Myanmar’s long-running civil wars, fractious politics and religious tensions. This latest volume in the Myanmar Update Series from the ANU College of Asia and the Pacific continues and deepens a tradition of intense, critical engagement with political, economic and social questions that matter to both the inhabitants and neighbours of one of Southeast Asia’s most complicated and fascinating countries.

Digital technologies are spreading rapidly, but digital dividends--the broader benefits of faster growth, more jobs, and better services--are not. If more than 40 percent of adults in East Africa pay their utility bills using a mobile phone, why can’t others around the world do the same? If 8 million entrepreneurs in China--one third of them women--can use an e-commerce platform to export goods to 120 countries, why can’t entrepreneurs elsewhere achieve the same global reach? And if India can provide unique digital identification to 1 billion people in five years, and thereby reduce corruption by billions of dollars, why can’t other countries replicate its success? Indeed, what’s holding back countries from realizing the profound and transformational effects that digital technologies are supposed to deliver? Two main reasons. First, nearly 60 percent of the world’s population are still offline and can’t participate in the digital economy in any meaningful way. Second, and more important, the benefits of digital technologies can be offset by growing risks. Startups can disrupt incumbents, but not when vested interests and regulatory uncertainty obstruct competition and the entry of new firms. Employment opportunities may be greater, but not when the labor market is polarized. The internet can be a platform for universal empowerment, but not when it becomes a tool for state control and elite capture. The World Development Report 2016 shows that while the digital revolution has forged ahead, its 'analog complements'--the regulations that promote entry and competition, the skills that enable workers to access and then leverage the new economy, and the institutions that are accountable to citizens--have not kept pace. And when these analog complements to digital investments are absent, the development impact can be disappointing. What, then, should countries do? They should formulate digital development strategies that are much broader than current information and communication technology (ICT) strategies. They should create a policy and institutional environment for technology that fosters the greatest benefits. In short, they need to build a strong analog foundation to deliver digital dividends to everyone, everywhere.

Offers new analysis of the complexities of the conflict and new insights into what is preventing a peaceful resolution to this intractable

Since the abortive 1988 pro-democracy uprising, Myanmar (formerly Burma) has attracted increased attention from a wide range of observers. Yet, despite all the statements, publications and documentary films made about the country over the past 32 years, it is still little known and poorly understood. It remains the subject of many myths, mysteries and misconceptions. Between 2008 and 2019, Andrew Selth clarified and explained contemporary developments in Myanmar on the Lowy Institute’s internationally acclaimed blog, The Interpreter. This collection of his 97 articles provides a fascinating and informative record of that critical period, and helps to explain many issues that remain relevant today.

The Rohingya are a Muslim group who live in Rakhine state (formerly Arakan state) in western Myanmar (Burma), a majority Buddhist country. According to the United Nations, they are one of the most persecuted minorities in the world. They suffer routine discrimination at the hands of neighboring Buddhist Rakhine groups, but international human rights groups such as Human Rights Watch (HRW) have also accused Myanmar's authorities of being complicit in a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya Muslims. The Rohingya face regular violence, arbitrary arrest and detention, extortion, and other abuses, a situation that has been particularly acute since 2012 in the wake of a serious wave of sectarian violence. Islam is practiced by around 4% of the population of Myanmar, and most Muslims also identify as Rohingya. Yet the authorities refuse to recognize this group as one of the 135 ethnic groups or 'national races' making up Myanmar's population. On this basis, Rohingya individuals are denied citizenship rights in the country of their birth, and face severe limitations on many aspects of an ordinary life, such as marriage or movement around the country. This expose of the attempt to erase the Rohingyas from the face of Myanmar is sure to gain widespread attention.

Major macroeconomic realignments are affecting prospects differentially across the world’s countries and regions. The April 2016 WEO examines the causes and implications of these realignments—including the slowdown and rebalancing in China, a further decline in commodity prices, a related slowdown in investment and trade, and declining capital flows to emerging market and developing economies—which are generating substantial uncertainty and affecting the outlook for the global economy. Additionally, analytical chapters examine the slowdown in capital flows to emerging market economies since their 2010 peak—its main characteristics, how it compares with past slowdowns, the factors that are driving it, and whether exchange rate flexibility has changed the dynamics of the capital inflow cycle—and assess whether product and labor market reforms can improve the economic outlook in advanced economies, looking at the recent evolution and scope for further reform, the channels through which reforms affect economic activity under strong versus weak economic conditions, reforms’ short- to medium-term macroeconomic effects, and sequencing of reforms and coordination with other policies to maximize their potential quantitative economic benefits. A special feature analyzes in depth the energy transition in an era of low fossil fuel prices.