.a_wrap {font-size:14px; font-family:Nanum Gothic, Sans-serif, Arial; line-height:20px;} Executive Summary The provision of safe and reliable water supply is important to all urban dwellers. Actually, urban water supply sys-tems aim to be a safe and reliable water supply for all urban residents. But the municipal water supply with improved public hygiene is still inadequate even in the major cities of Yangon and Mandalay. This research aims to explore the challenges facing the current water supply in Yangon, particularly at the township level. It will also identify the factors that hinder the sustainable supply of water at the township level.   Quotes from the Paper Background of the Study Access to clean and safe water remains a pressing issue since Yangon is undergoing rapid economic growth which is likely to result in fast-paced urbanization. These two factors combined are expected to further stress the water supply sys-tem and its alternatives. The same could also exasperate differences in services among areas in the same townships. Yangon City comprises 33 townships. Insein, one of the townships, was selected for this study partly because of its relatively higher urban population compared to other townships. Statement of the Research Problem Access to clean and safe water is an urgent issue in Yangon. Little research has been done on the subject, especially at the township level. This study aims to provide in-depth information on the case of Insein Township with the hope of coming up with actions and strategies that can be implemented to provide sustainable access and/or supply for residents in this area as well as Yangon City in general. Research Questions This study aims to answer the following questions.       a)   What are the current water supply challenges in Insein Township?       b)   What are the factors that hinder the sustainable supply of water in the township?       c)   What are some of the strategies and actions that can be implemented in both the short and long-term to improve access to clean and safe water in Insein Township and Yangon City in general?   Author Another Development (AD) is a local Myanmar think-tank and a non-profit organization. The motto of the organization is “DIGNITY, PROSPERITY and COOPERATION” and the programs we anticipate rolling out in the coming five years reflect these principles. There are five themes that AD is focusing on: Human Rights, Multiculturalism, Decentralization and Federalism, Rural Economic Development and Social Enterprises, and E-government and E-citizen. AD was set up to be part of the solution to the problems and conflicts prevailing in Myanmar by advocating effective public policy change.    

.a_wrap {font-size:14px; font-family:Nanum Gothic, Sans-serif, Arial; line-height:20px;} Introduction Members of Parliament (MPs) have three major responsibilities, including the responsibility to represent their constituencies. This means MPs are responsible for helping and protecting the people who voted for them in accordance with the existing law and their authority. As representatives, MPs have to present the people’s needs and difficulties to the government. This task can be effectively carried out through actions such as approving laws required for the country and monitoring the government instead of the people. Therefore, MPs need to strengthen their activities on their representative duty. MPs also need support and assistance to be effective representatives. Moreover, there is also need to upgrade the capacities of MPs as well as their support staff. In order for MPs to be effective representatives, it is necessary for them to improve their level of knowledge on topics such as understanding the existing political situation through the voters, the role of Parliament and representatives, and citizen rights and responsibilities. By increasing their own awareness on these topics, citizens can also collaborate with MPs, evaluate and criticize the performance of Members of Parliament and the government, monitor the government through MPs and participate and contribute to the legislation process. Only if those needs, between members of Parliaments, can be fulfilled, transparency, accountability, responsibility and collaboration can be strengthened. Only if those representative duties are carried out effectively, regional development can be progressed more and more.   Author The Open Myanmar Initiative (OMI) is a nonprofit organization promoting the right to information and education. The OMI is the first ever independent political think-tank in Myanmar and they try to play an important role to formulate policy studies and recommendations on various political issues and provide them to policy makers, political parties, civil society organizations and general population through various delivery sys-tems, including publishing, using social media networks, providing trainings and public talks, organizing seminars and conferences, as well as direct engagement with Members of Parliament and the Government Ministers.    

.a_wrap {font-size:14px; font-family:Nanum Gothic, Sans-serif, Arial; line-height:20px;} Executive Summary This research focuses on the use of unregistered cars in Myitkyina, Kachin State. From 2001, the military government artificially supported the domestic car industry. However, this did not last long, and the monopoly on vehicle import licenses led to a boom in the black market. Short supply and high demand meant that the secondhand car market in Myanmar was one of the most expensive in the world. This paper will explore the situation and the reasons for the increased use of unregistered private cars. Significantly, the import trend started in 2011 with the liberalization of car import procedures. Although the use of private cars in Kachin State has increased enormously, the amount of tax revenue remains stagnant because of an increase in unregistered vehicles . This rise led to the State Parliament agreeing to a proposal in 2016 to offer registration to unregistered car owners, but this could not be implemented because of the limited legislative power at the state level. A registered car costs five times more than an unregistered one, and at least four unregistered cars are driven to Myitkyina every day. The number of people who bought an unregistered car in 2017 is the highest of any year so far, and the briefly imposed travel restrictions on unregistered vehicles are no longer being implemented. The unreasonable cost of registering a vehicle is forcing people to choose affordability over the risk that the car could be taken away, but the huge number of illegally imported cars deprive the Union of vital tax revenue. According to the 2015 Motor Vehicle Law, the term “motor vehicle” refers to a vehicle with wheels using mechanical or electrical power or any other energy to move. Thus, it includes all kinds of vehicles such as motor cycles, motor cars and other vehicles. This research, however, will only focus on cars: using an unregistered car is against the relatively recent Motor Vehicle Law that was passed in 2015.   Author Naushawng Development Institute (NDI) is an independent, non-profit education and development organization founded on April 9th2009 by Kachin scholars committed to strengthening democracy and community development in northern Myanmar. NDI contributes to democratic transition, peace building and sustainable development in Myanmar through training; education; advocacy; research and policy development analysis, as well as networking.    

.a_wrap {font-size:14px; font-family:Nanum Gothic, Sans-serif, Arial; line-height:20px;} Abstract Public libraries improve the quality of life in communities and are centers that offer financial and social benefits for community development. This study aims to describe how people perceive public libraries and how the characteristics of libraries and the people in a community influence library use. Data is collected from purposive samples of thirteen librarians, eighteen users and twenty-seven non-users in Mandalay through in-depth interviews and participant observation at libraries. The information that different types of users need is determined by their respective personal profiles. The majority of non-users rely on the Internet, newspapers, radio and TV to fulfill their information needs. These resources provide fast and easy access to rich data sources. Whereas library users seek information from both libraries and the resources listed above, they seek information from printed books more frequently than the Internet or social media because data from printed books is more reliable than data online sources. However, there is a group of non-users who are unwilling to seek information from any of these sources. The study finds that those users and non-users who are elderly, female, married and middle-aged workers have the greatest difficult in accessing libraries compared to others. In addition, people have difficulty accessing libraries because they struggle to make a living and do not read as a hobby. The study also finds that library use correlates with the location of the library and how well-known it is. Library activities and the presence of Wi-Fi attract more people. Moreover, technology and entertainment have a high impact on the use of libraries. Finally, users perceive they gain social, financial, physical, mental and cognitive benefits by using libraries at the individual , community and country levels.  Key words: Public library, Information needs, Use of library, Impacts, Mandalay, Library use   Author Yone Kyi Yar was founded by university students and active youth in Mandalay on 22nd July, 2011. At first, its main activities were weekly book clubs, group discussion and topic presentations. At the end of 2013, members of Yone Kyi Yar decided to take another step forward. Then, Yone Kyi Yar rent a building and founded a free public library and training center in Mandalay to serve the community better. Then it also expanded new activities such as intellectual talks and capacity building trainings.    

.a_wrap {font-size:14px; font-family:Nanum Gothic, Sans-serif, Arial; line-height:20px;} Executive Summary It is obvious that, in comparison with other regional countries, the overall political and living conditions of the Burmese people were explicitly left behind for over 60 years due to the rule of the military-backed dictatorship. Since the country’s 2010 transition to democracy, the desire and passion of the citizens to develop and catch up to international trends has only grown, reaching a peak around time of the NLD’s election triumph in 2015. The Yangon School of Political Science (YSPS) conducted a public opinion poll on the recently established Yangon Bus Sys-tem and came up with the optimism of its users and willingness to contributing to proceeding further reform measures such as national development and cities development by the users and the people.   Quotes from the Paper Introduction The strong will of the people to achieve higher national development and make progress in raising the country’s socioeconomic status was observed in the case of the reform of the Public Transportation Sys-tem initiated by the Yangon Regional government in early 2016. People were largely dissatisfied with the performance of the old sys-tem (Ma Hta Tha), and their desperation for something better allowed them to be swept away by the spreading news of the impending Yangon Bus Sys-tem at that time. However, since its introduction, the newly established (YBS) sys-tem has revealed some of innate structural weaknesses, especially in terms of the bus schedules and route maps. In spite of that, people were quite willing to endure these initial hardships as they remembered the struggles of the previous sys-tem held out hope that the reform had the potential to improve the situation. Research Methodology Yangon School of Political Science did a survey on the opinions of commuters who ride Yangon Buses. The survey was conducted to the best of our capacity, although financial and human resource limitations, as well as the limited availability of respondents, may have impacted the results. Surveyors visited crowded places, public squares and bus stops in Yangon and asked commuters who were willing to answer and had enough time to respond to the survey questions. A total of fifteen survey questions were answered by five hundred respondents. Yangon School of Political Science employed some questions from public transportation research in other countries and developed others tailored to the Yangon Bus Sys-tem to create the questionnaire. In addition, YSPS interviewed MPs from Yangon Regional Parliament, some directors from bus line companies, and some representatives from public transportation groups in order to collect additional opinions from a variety of perspectives on the changes to the public bus sys-tem. However, YSPS was unable to observe the implementation of instructions by the Yangon Regional government and policy making sessions because of limited access to information and a lack of transparency. This lack of access was unfortunate as we consider these observations necessary to gain a truly insightful understanding of the changes to the Yangon Bus Sys-tem. As a result, YSPS chose to focus on the improvements to the public bus sys-tem and examine public opinion regarding these changes. Recommendations on YBS Sys-tem YRTA should copy the reform of Seoul Bus Sys-tem and Tai Chun Bus Sys-tem. Before the Seoul Bus Reform, the mayor of it studied the problems and conducted a public policy research. After two years, his research report was publicized and the new sys-tem was based on its findings and got lessons learned. And also Taichun government allowed all the stake holders of Taichun Bus transportation to participate in the discussions for the reform. So their reforms were successful in a very short time and all stake holders followed the reform schemes. Another lesson from their reform is that the Seoul government gave incentive to bus owners and drivers for their better services. So YRTA should create some incentives to bus owners for investing in public companies like reducing their income tax and bus drivers for better service like giving bonus. The government should anticipate how private owned buses ought to be replaced and improved for better bus services. Improvement of bus services could hurt the owners of low quality buses as their business shall be stopped. The government should consider how to compensate them.   Author The Yangon School of Political Science(YSPS) is an academic institution which will be delivering knowledge to transform Burma into Free, Just and Tolerant society with informed, liberated and empowered citizenry. YSPS is a leading front in liberal philosophical movement and research, as part of the global movement towards the same end.    

.a_wrap {font-size:14px; font-family:Nanum Gothic, Sans-serif, Arial; line-height:20px;} Introduction Myanmar is now in democratic transition. Historically, women's participation in politics is weak in Myanmar. Since independence, a limited number of women have taken decision-making and leading roles. Military dominance in politics explains why Myanmar's politics are so heavily dominated by men. Gender stereotypes are culturally deeply embedded. The majority of the population, including women themselves, accepts these culturally dictated gender roles. According to the 2014 Myanmar census, women are over 51% of the population in Myanmar and over 52% of people who can work are women. However, about 50% of women in that group are unemployed. As a training and research institute, Sandhi Governance Institute aims to understand the realities of women in the community, such as the current economic and social situations of young women, the relationships between education levels and social standards as well as economic opportunities in different areas of the country. In other words, Sandhi is exploring issues and opportunities for the empowerment of young women (between the ages of 18 to 35) who are potential leaders both in the political and the development sectors of the country. Thus, research on issues and opportunities for young women's empowerment was conducted by the training participants of Sandhi's women's leadership training for young women (from 18 to 35 years old) program. These participants come from political parties and civil society organizations and through this research they sought to understand how things are going with young women in their places of origin. In assessing the current situation, participants also looked for ways the young women in these communities can be empowered effectively, either by themselves or by local and international organizations as well as the government. This empowerment will contribute to the economic development of Myanmar in the country's transition to democracy. It is expected that this report, which reviews the findings on the current situations of young women in Myanmar and offers recommendations for how to empower them, can be instrumental for policy makers as well as international and local organizations that are interested in providing effective and substantive support to empower young women in Myanmar.   Author Sandhi Governance Institute was founded by two public policy graduates in 2007 and it was registered as private consultancy firm in 2008. Since that time, it has been conducting various development, governance, public policy and political trainings. In addition, it also carries out research on youth and employment opportunities, political parties and civil society.    

.a_wrap {font-size:14px; font-family:Nanum Gothic, Sans-serif, Arial; line-height:20px;} Introduction Over the past eight years, three shifts in Myanmar’s democratic transition have taken place: (1) from unitary to federal (2) from centralization to decentralization and (3) from centralized local governance to decentralized local governance in extant. After 2010, Myanmar became a guided democracy with a quasi-civilian government that combines military and elected persons at every level of administration accordance with the Constitution. The presidential decree made in 2012 can also be recognized as the initial step of local democracy, governance and services. In other words, it can be claimed that local elections and weak decentralization created few spaces for citizens in local level governance. As a consequence, some local governance bodies give some spaces to allow citizen participation in local democracy and services.  However, local democracy in a federal democracy context remains to be clearly articulated because the government, ethnic armed organizations, and the military do not have a general consensus in the building of the state. Federalism and democracy are becoming a serious concern of the people of Myanmar in the ongoing transition process. The new thinking in local governance in federal sys-tem emphasizes the division of power between federal and state governments. A proposition to recognize the Federal government and full competence of State governments is expected to be forthcoming in the future. The study of local government in federal sys-tems (third layer government) will be essential to the study as a part of state building. This article primarily intends to understand the nature of true self-local government. In addition, it offers a comparison of local governments and examines how local self-governance has been practiced in federal states through case studies. For those who are willing to pursue the transformation to democracy and a federal sys-tem, this paper aims to contribute knowledge of the concept of local self-government in a federal sys-tem, what kind of functions and power local governments have, how they emerged the need to maintain intergovernmental relations between states, and how they lead to long lasting democracy across the world. In addition, considering local self-governance in a federal context will certainly be helpful to the future of the country.   Table of Contents This paper is organized in four parts as follows: 1. Understanding Local Self-government 2. Local Governments in Federal Sys-tems 3. Analyzing the Structure of the Current Administration Sys-tem 4. The Local Government Model Envisioned by Myanmar’s Ethnic Minority Groups   Author The Salween Institute blends objective analysis and hands-on community empowerment programs to frame policy debate and help shape public policy in Burma/Myanmar based on social justice, environmental responsibilities and ethnic right to self-determination.    

EAI Special Report_ The First Step towardParticipatory Budgeting in Myanmar     Introduction     Over the last two years EAI has been working with civil society organizations in Myanmar as a part of the “Building Civil Society Capacity in Myanmar Through Budget Monitoring” program. As part of this program, four Myanmar partner organizations, the Open Myanmar Initiative, Renaissance Institute, Sandhi Governance Institute, and the Yangon School of Political Science, conducted research on the budget process in Myanmar. Each organization focused on a different stage of the budget cycle and looked at different levels of government. The Open Myanmar Initiative investigated the budget approval process in the Myanmar national legislature. The Renaissance Institute focused on the budget planning process at the national level to see how budget proposals make their way to the legislature. Sandhi Governance Institute studied how budgets were implemented at the local government level. And the Yangon School of Political Science researched how the budget process in the Education Ministry worked in the course of building new schools. All of these reports are valuable as they represent one of the first steps in revealing how budgeting is being done by the Myanmar government and will assist civil society in illuminating this process to encourage good governance in the country.     Quotes from the Report     "Although revenue has been increasing in recent years, at the same time, expenditures are also increasing. The problems causing low budget credibility is the lack of transparency in tax collection and allocation and spending of expenditures. And then the government is also very tightly controlling the budget which means that the general public doesn’t know anything about the budget." - Renaissance Institute     "The NLD government should make the allocated budget of all states and regional divisions accessible to all. If possible, the allocated budget format should be comprehensive and easy to understand." -Sandhi Governance Institute     "The parliament should open up the committee hearings to the public and set up the committee sys-tem that requires each select committee to hear the relevant ministry’s assessment of budget proposals. Holding public hearings would increase the transparency of the parliament and strengthen its role in government oversight." -Open Myanmar Initiative     "All of the projects were initiated by government departments. There were no discussion with citizens to propose a project and no room for them." -Yangon School of Political Science                 Authors Various personnel from the Open Myanmar Initiative, Renaissance Institute, Sandhi Governance Institute, and the Yangon School of Political Science contributed to the research and writing of each report. Professor Jae Hyeok Shin (Korea University) served as the head of the research team and reviewed all the reports to offer his suggestions on ways to improve the methodology and writing. EAI provided support in the form of typesetting and proofreading for the production of the reports.