At Myanmar’s recently concluded development cooperation forum, Wah Wah Maung, deputy director general of Myanmar’s Ministry of National Planning and Economic Development, expressed hopes that donors would support government efforts to promote better aid management and improved information sharing — two key principles that would keep development assistance in check for what is increasingly becoming the world’s donor darling.
The march of donors to Myanmar is reflected in the amount of aid committed and disbursed to the once-closed country. In 2013, the latest year for which official figures from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development are available, disbursements to Myanmar reached $4.5 billion — a 788 percent increase from the $504 million released to the country in 2012.
Poverty incidence within the country, however, is a little less straightforward.