11 June 2019
MEDIA RELEASE
LIFT Forum 2019 marks 10-year anniversary and launches 2019-23 strategy
Leading thinkers and development actors will meet at the LIFT Forum 2019 in Nay Pyi Taw this week as the Livelihoods and Food Security Fund (LIFT) marks ten years of work in Myanmar and launches its strategy for 2019-2023. The major stakeholder conference runs from 11 to 13 June and brings together global and Myanmar experts to reflect on LIFT’s, as well as Myanmar’s, past, present and the future.
LIFT Fund Director Katy Webley said: “During its decade of existence, LIFT has constantly evolved alongside the rapidly developing Myanmar context. LIFT has reached 11.6 million people to date and we are active in over 70 per cent of the country’s townships. With LIFT’s refreshed strategy for 2019-2023, we will continue to achieve tangible results for Myanmar’s people, through our strong and wide network of partnerships with our donors and our implementing partners; alongside Government, the private sector and civil society. LIFT Forum 2019 will highlight the successes and challenges LIFT has, and will, encounter as a pooled development fund in Myanmar.”
LIFT Forum 2019 will delve into LIFT’s mission in Myanmar to reduce poverty, strengthen the resilience and sustainable livelihoods of poor households and boost social cohesion. Speeches and discussions will explore a variety of current issues such as rural transformation, workers’ and migration rights, women’s empowerment, social pensions, access to finance and opportunities and challenges for civil society.
The Union Ministers for Agriculture, Livestock and Irrigation and Investment and Foreign Economic Relations, H.E. Dr Aung Thu and H.E. U Thaung Tun will open the forum at the launch event on Tuesday evening. Other speakers at the launch include ambassadors and representatives of LIFT’s donors Australia, Canada, the European Union, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States.
The second day of the forum looks back at ten years of LIFT, with a keynote speech by Dr Sean Turnell, Special Economic Adviser to the State Counsellor of Myanmar. The third day looks to Myanmar’s future opening with historian, author and former Advisor to the President of Myanmar Dr Thant Myint-U as the keynote speaker.
Over a span of ten years and through the support of more than 60 implementing partners, LIFT has financed a total of 183 projects aimed at improving nutrition, income, infrastructure, agricultural practices and human migration. Through its efforts, LIFT has reached as many as 11.6 million people in rural and peri-urban households, provided better food security for 2.2 million people as well as microfinance access to 2.6 million people, and more generally helped increase the resilience of around six million people in Myanmar. LIFT is managed by UNOPS.
LIFT Forum 2019 website: www.liftforum.org
LIFT Forum 2019 agenda and speaker biographies
https://www.facebook.com/liftfund/
For more information:
+95 9 44 800 7372 (Hsu Mon Aung)
+95 975 0138 489 (Emilia Hinkkanen)
