The reform agenda in Myanmar: something different or more of the same?

A few months ago, the United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator (UNRHC) for Myanmar, Gwyn Lewis, posted an article in Frontier magazine. In the article, the UNRHC highlights a paradox that speaks to both the inherent resilience of the Myanmar people but also the fact that this resilience is being eroded by a ‘convergence of crises’ comprising ‘conflict, displacement, natural disaster and economic hardship’. The UNRHC situates the Myanmar crisis within the wider global response environment, noting that: ‘Myanmar is competing for attention and funding in an increasingly crowded humanitarian space’. I find myself agreeing with the UNRHC. In the five years since the coup, Myanmar has been one of the least well-funded appeals globally. Put simply, in terms of global funding priorities, Myanmar tends to get a raw deal.

More actors, less money

So far, so good: consensus. However, the possible point of departure arrives in a series of statements the UNRHC makes towards the end of her article. To begin with, the UNRHC declares that: ‘Humanitarian actors are facing difficult choices about how to prioritise limited resources, even as needs continue to grow’. She goes on: ‘operational challenges on the ground – compounded by the fuel crisis caused by the war in the Middle East – are making responses more difficult and more expensive’. While I don’t disagree with either statement per se, I think they ignore the choices the response community could make were it laser-focused on enhancing efficiencies and bringing down costs. To support my thinking, I’ve taken a closer look at three humanitarian appeals stretched over a one-decade period covering 2017–2026. In that time, successive Myanmar humanitarian needs and response plans (HNRPs) have amounted to $5.83 billion, of which $2.69 billion has been mobilised.

This year’s Myanmar HNRP is seeking $889.6 million. As of 27 October 2026, it has secured $463.4 million or 52% of that sought. Coincidentally, this is almost exactly the same average percentage coverage of appeals over the past 10 years. So, despite variations in the size of the appeal – the $1.13 billion 2025 HNRP appeal was nearly eight times greater than the 2017 equivalent – average contributions have remained mostly consistent. Appeal budgets have risen sharply but evidence suggest they mobilise around half of what they requested! $463.4 million represents the largest amount ever secured by a humanitarian appeal in Myanmar and is greater than the funding secured for the earthquake-expanded HNRP in 2025.  

Moreover, the context remains broadly familiar. The ‘convergence of crises’ the UNRHC speaks of combining conflict, displacement and natural disasters were also all risks in 2017 and 2021. Sure, the depth of those individual and interlocking crises may have been exacerbated by five years of intensified conflict following the 2021 coup, but the underlying factors to which the humanitarian community (and, to some degree, development programmes) are responding are broadly unchanged.

One thing that has significantly changed is the number and make-up of responders. In 2017, there were 65 partners appealing through the Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP). By 2021, this had grown to 147, and in 2026 the number of partners appealing through the HNRP stands at 347, of whom 222 are local and national responders. (As an aside, if one uses the HNRP as a general metric for localisation, then the increased visibility of local and national responders may be viewed as a measure of success). If you consider the five-fold increase in the number of partners appealing through the HNRP over the past decade and set this against the funding situation and strategic direction of the response, then essentially, we have a greater number of partners, often doing the same sort of thing yet competing for a diminishing pot of money. Surely, this very stark and clearly unsustainable bottom line obliges us to rethink how we can best serve a growing caseload of people in need in Myanmar, with potentially fewer resources.

Strategic focus in Myanmar?

Having considered the context, funding and number of responders, let’s look at our strategic focus over the past decade. In 2017, the HRP presented four strategic objectives (SOs) covering humanitarian needs, livelihoods, protection and community resilience. In 2021, two SOs covered health and rights and improved living standards and resilience. This year’s HNRP continues with two SOs that are focused on: the provision of life-saving assistance and the protection of crisis-affected people. As befits the operating environment, there is a thread of consistency here: a binary approach that responds to urgent humanitarian needs, at the same time as using emergency assistance as the springboard from which to reinforce community resilience. Sure, this two-fold approach offers consistency, but has it informed a change in what we do or accelerated efforts to deliver more with less?

Let’s descend a level and look more closely at project activities. How have they changed over the past decade? Well, not much in all honesty. In fact, if you examine the suite of project options presented this year, they appear little changed from those presented in 2021 or 2017. For example, then as now, food security was the dominant appealing sector with protection, shelter and water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) also significant. The type of projects that comprised these sector budgets also are much the same. Food security is a combination of cash and in-kind assistance married to livelihoods support. Then, as now, protection covers a slew of activities, including awareness raising, case referral, capacity-building and training, etc. WASH is as WASH was. Perhaps all this shouldn’t come as a huge surprise given the context continuity mentioned above but, equally, perhaps it demonstrates a lack of thought when it comes to programme innovation? Maybe the story is more encouraging when it comes to cash?

Cash is very much at the vanguard of the response in Myanmar, so much so that this year’s HNRP includes a dedicated $85 million multi-purpose cash (MPC) assistance appeal. (By contrast, there was no comparable budget line in the 2017 or 2021 appeals.) But there are also significant cash and voucher assistance components in the education, food security, protection, shelter and WASH sector budgets. So, the response provides both conditional and unconditional and restricted and unrestricted cash assistance. This appears contrary to both the spirit of the 2016 Grand Bargain, Increasing the ‘use and coordination of cash-based programming’ is one of the 10 commitments presented in the Grand Bargain endorsed at the 2016 World Humanitarian Summit. The Grand Bargain states that cash ‘can have the greatest impact when delivered as a single multi-sector transfer, rather than broken into components for shelter, household goods etc’.   but also statements made in successive HNRPs. In 2017, the HNRP stated:

‘the Humanitarian Country Team will systematically consider unrestricted and unconditional cash transfers as an important modality for delivering humanitarian assistance […] will also explore options to increase the use of multi-purpose cash assistance’.

In 2021, the HNRP stated that:

‘greater coordination and harmonization will provide a basis for the expansion of multi-purpose cash […] and the possibility of launching joint multi-purpose cash programs’.

And this year’s HNRP says:

‘cash assistance, and multi-purpose cash (MPC) in particular, were used as frontline emergency response […] most partners in Myanmar increasingly see opportunities in the use of MPC because of its contextual utility’.

Pretty compelling statements that encourage the provision of MPC and yet, despite this, there is, conservatively, around $130 million being transferred as cash that is tied to the activities of specific sectors. I am fully aware that the provision of cash is closely monitored and comes with certain challenges. My point therefore is not necessarily to massively increase the volume of cash delivered but rather reduce the number of cash providers. Scaling up the provision of cash through social protection/safety net programmes is the subject of another article!  

Why is this? Why are we both transferring MPC and conditional cash for education or cash for shelter? Perhaps we are looking to incentivise household spending in one area for fear that it might otherwise be neglected? That is reasonable and yet at the same time, globally, we entrust households to make this very distinction. That’s exactly the point behind MPC. Let the household decide. But cash is just one area of slightly muddled engagement. In the 2026 Myanmar HNRP, there are 10 sectors appealing for funding. In 2017, there were eight identical sectors and seven in 2021. HNRPs are structured around a set of priority activities that respond to need but also allow multiple UN agencies to pursue their respective mandates. For these reasons, project activities – the sort of projects that seek to protect and/or deliver assistance and services – are largely unchanged from a decade back, possibly longer. In Myanmar, this has led to scores if not hundreds of different projects, delivered by scores if not hundreds of different agencies. What we do now is a lot similar to what we did back then, which calls into question the willingness of the response community to either evolve what it does or to genuinely commit to change.

Reform in Myanmar?

What happened to proposing a more dynamic and evolutionary mix of programmes in line with the UN Reform Agenda? The Humanitarian Compact linked to the UN 80 Reform Agenda emphasises the need:

‘To make the humanitarian system deliver faster, more efficiently and coherently and with greater impact for people in crisis’.

This is underscored by the Shifting Paradigms report produced by the UN Secretary-General’s Office in April 2026, which plainly states the need to: ‘clarify roles to reduce duplication and strengthen impact’.

The report continues: ‘clearer divisions of labour will mean greater efficiency, predictability and results at scale’.

All laudable aims, so how do we ensure that this spirit of programmatic evolution informs and shapes the Myanmar response going forward?

All reform agendas should unsettle the status quo and challenge vested interests. But as humanitarians and developmentalists working in Myanmar, are we truly committed to doing things differently and achieving different outcomes? Can we re-engineer the interoperability of UN agencies? Can we retain the value of complementary mandates, expertise and relationships, whilst also addressing the perennial issue of duplication and competing institutional interests? Will we prioritise the interests and programmes of local and national responders over UN agencies or INGOs?

Here’s one way forward. Let’s start by reviewing and, where appropriate, revising the architecture that props up the response to create the ‘faster, leaner and more accountable system’ championed in the UN 80 Reform Agenda. As appropriate, let’s empower the UNRHC to challenge the hegemony of UN agencies and examine how we might deliver more joined-up and cost-effective programmes. Myanmar is a vast country but do we need so many agencies appealing through the HNRP, particularly if they are mostly doing the same thing, i.e. delivering cash? The market continues to function, so can we provide more cash, albeit through fewer agencies? Can we focus on MPC and strip out conditional and restricted forms of cash assistance? Notwithstanding the insecurities that exist, can we reimagine our engagement with the private sector and move beyond the largely transactional relationship that has traditionally characterised engagement in Myanmar and elsewhere? In line with the Reform Agenda, can we genuinely do fewer things much better?

Unless we change what we do and how, I fear the international response in Myanmar will become a deoxygenated dead zone where we simply continue to copy-paste programmes from a decade ago. In failing to capture the zeitgeist of reform, we risk undermining potential outcomes and favouring continuity over transformation. For us all to remain relevant and better serve the people of Myanmar, we need to enact the change foreseen in the UN 80 Agenda, rethink our response and deliver cost-effective, multi-sectoral support to those in need.

Anonymous. The author requested to remain anonymous. They have worked for a number of CSOs and INGOs in Myanmar.