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Myanmar

WFP Myanmar Country Brief, February 2017

Attachments

Highlights

  • Security operations ceased in the northern part of Rakhine State. WFP assisted 25,000 people in Maungdaw and Buthidaung Townships most affected by the security operations.

  • WFP successfully launched a pilot project exploring the use of mobile financial services in the delivery of cash assistance to displaced people in Kachin State.

  • Conflicts continued to impede WFP’s assistance to vulnerable and food-insecure people in areas beyond Government control in Kachin and Shan States.

Operational Updates

  • Five months after the attacks on the border guard police outposts in the northern part of Rakhine State in October 2016, the Government’s security operations reportedly came to a halt in February. WFP continued to assist food-insecure populations in all regular WFP operational areas prior to the security incidents on 9 October, as well as newly affected populations. Twenty-five thousand food-insecure people were assisted in Buthidaung and Maungdaw townships, who had their houses burnt or destroyed, were displaced, or were the most food-insecure, such as orphans or households headed by women or elderly people.

  • In central Rakhine, to meet the needs of the increase in newly displaced people, WFP identified new food distribution points that were more spacious and neutral in the central part of the state. These new sites were planned to reduce opportunity costs for people in need of food assistance who had to endure long waiting times, lengthy travel distances and high transportation costs.

  • From 27 February to 1 March, WFP launched a pilot project in Kachin State, testing the feasibility of using of mobile financial services to deliver humanitarian assistance. The first disbursements of cash assistance to displaced people were completed without technical issues and reached 112 households, or 495 people, who received assistance via accounts on their mobile phones, known as e-wallets. The launch of the pilot project marked the first ever application of mobile financial technology in a humanitarian context in Myanmar, capitalising on the country’s rapid development in telecommunications. This technology promises to increase the safety, reliability and ease of cash assistance to displaced people, and enable greater financial inclusion for some of the country’s most vulnerable populations.

  • In Kachin State, clashes between the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and government forces continued to inhibit WFP’s ability to provide life-saving food assistance to vulnerable and food-insecure populations in areas beyond government control. Due to the intensified fighting, a large movement of displaced people fled from areas controlled by the KIA to government-controlled areas. In February, 501 people were newly displaced, bringing the total number of displaced people having fled non-government controlled areas since January to 2,242.

  • Food assistance in northern Shan State continued to be affected by the ongoing conflicts in the region between ethnic armed organisations and the Government. While the security situation remained unstable in Kokang Self-Administered Zone in northern Shan State, the Government allowed WFP to deliver food to the area during the first week of February, which was sufficient for nearly two months’ worth of distributions. However, after the conflict resumed in the second week of February, access was once again restricted.

  • At the beginning of February, WFP estimated 480,214 people to be in the need of food assistance. As access issues—which had continuously impeded the delivery of food assistance to a number of areas—improved, WFP was able to assist 530,273 people across Myanmar. This was mainly due to the reopening of schools, which could once again receive nutritious biscuit snacks for students through WFP’s school feeding activities.