Main findings from the 4th round of the Qualitative Social and Economic Monitoring Report (QSEM) were presented in Yangon on February 5th 2015. QSEM is funded by LIFT and executed by the World Bank and Enlightened Myanmar Research (EMR).
In 2014, researchers conducted 485 in-depth interviews and 200 focus group discussions with 1,474 respondents in 54 villages across Myanmar (Ayeyarwady, Chin, Magway, Mandalay, Rakhine, and Shan). Questions focused on villagers' livelihoods to gauge the impact of social and institutional factors. The main changes identified in this round are:
- Villagers experienced better returns on their livelihoods due to favourable weather and better prices
- Persistent labour shortages at non-peak periods affected wages and working conditions. There was an increase in migration and diversification to non-farm opportunities
- Positive trends did not benefit all groups equally. Economic prospects declined in particular for subsistence fishermen
- Villagers placed greater pressure on government to perform
- Power became more entrenched in the role of a village tract administrator
- Provision of government programmes and services increased almost threefold
The full QSEM 4th round report is available here, The previous QSEM reports can be found here.
If you have any comments and feedback for the design of the next round, please send them to lift@unops.org
