Action Movies & the Census

In action films the car crashes always happen in slow motion.

The car is speeding along and then as it hits the side of the bridge and flips over, the movie slows down. We can see every detail as it turns slowly in the air and then smashes into the ground. 

Sometimes, despite the massive crash, Nicholas Cage or Angelina Jolie crawl out of the wreck. Their face might have a few drops of blood and they limp for a few steps. But then they are off to find their next dangerous stunt.

But other times in these movies, the car hits the ground in slow motion and then explodes. And everything just goes up in flames.

Hearing about the Myanmar census recently has been a bit like watching a slow motion car crash. 

Officially, UNFPA says that ‘the census information is a useful tool for peace process, reform agenda, fair representation of the various groups, as well as for effective planning and policy making’.

But everyone – including UNFPA and its donors – has known for months about the risks associated with it. There has been commissioned research, special reports and journal articles showing it will likely deepen ethnic and religious divisions rather than reduce them. And this week the Irrawaddy magazine outlined a new round of discontent from various ethnic groups and ‘subgroups’ (see below link). But despite all the warnings, the Ministry of Immigration and Population, UNFPA and its donor partners have decided to push on with their existing plans.

In general, we should give policy makers the benefit of the doubt. We live in a fast changing and unpredictable world and even with the wisest planning things can go wrong.

But this is different. We can all see the car spinning in slow motion. And it will definitely hit the ground. The only question now is whether the passengers can crawl out of that car and keep running? Or whether it all explodes?

Let’s hope for a miracle escape - in which case much of this will soon be forgotten.

But if it goes up in flames, UNFPA and the Ministry will face the awful question of why they watched a slow motion car crash for so long, and did so little.

Irrawaddy article http://www.irrawaddy.org/burma/burmas-ethnic-minorities-decry-census-jostle-advantage.html

From: Tamas

Photo: Transit movie

Do Asians understand democracy?

Last week the Economist asked the question of whether democracy is struggling in Asia – just look at Thailand, Bangladesh or Cambodia at the moment – because Asian leaders are confused by what it means.

In some ways this throws back to the ‘Asian values’ debate of ten years ago where Lee Kuan Yew famously said that Asians place more value on things like respect, family and hierarchy and therefore can never have free-wheeling, liberal democracies like in the West.

I am not so sure about that as it feels like too much of a crude assumption.

But another response by J. Zilber is that Asians tend to think differently to Westerners. It is not that Asians don’t understand ‘democracy’ but that there are different thought processes going on.

He says there is psychological research to suggest that ‘whereas Westerners tend to prefer clear cut, logical dichotomies and analyse things logically, Easterners think more holistically, where everything is combined and rules are not the final word. Elections are rule-based systems, and perhaps psychologically less appealing to the Eastern holistic way of thinking.

An interesting idea but is all of this just nonsense? Aren’t we all – whether Myanmar, American or Thai - fundamentally the same in the end? Striving for the same ideals?

Or alternatively, are there actually real differences between Asia and the West? Whether in understanding, values or even in thought processes?

Donors really like to talk about ‘country ownership’ - but in Myanmar this is harder than it sounds.

Donors really like to talk about ‘country ownership’ - but in Myanmar this is harder than it sounds.
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From: Tamas

The Second Myanmar Development Cooperation Forum has ended with many of the expected feel-good diplo-speak statements about cooperation between the Myanmar government and donors to ‘accelerate development’.

Yet underneath the neatly scripted statements (which sound like a computer has drafted them), the whole Nay Pyi Taw Accord process does have an i...mportant function in emphasising Myanmar’s ownership of the aid agenda. 

Internationally, the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness in 2005 - and the other high level donor meetings since then – rightly put the idea of ‘ownership’ more strongly on the donor radar. And who would disagree? Of course countries themselves – rather than foreign governments –should be in the driver’s seat of their own development.



But, saying you want ‘country ownership’ is not as easy as it sounds.

In Thomas Carothers’ recent book ‘Development Aid Confronts Politics’ he brings up the point that ‘ownership’ can be interpreted in different ways - is it ‘government’ ownership, or is there somehow an idea of ‘society-wide’ ownership?

Of course, ‘society wide ownership’ is impossible - how can you get a country of people to unanimously buy into an agenda for aid? There will always be some people left on the margins. But the idea is important in that it sees ‘government’ and ‘society’ as not necessarily having the same perspective - and in fact, at times their agendas may be competing. So if you want to talk about real ‘country ownership’, you have to reach out wider than just elites in the government.

Overall, Carothers reckons that Western donors – the likes of DFID, Australian Aid, USAID and the EC - tend to overemphasise the first option of ‘government’ ownership, to the detriment of the more challenging and perhaps ‘political’ idea of ‘society’ ownership.

But in Myanmar that wasn’t always the case.

In my first few years in Myanmar in the mid-2000s, it seemed that the opposite was true. Myanmar was a little understood pariah state, and donors tended to look to ownership (or legitimacy) of the aid agenda more directly through local communities or activist groups or local NGOs. And one criticism of donors during that time could have been that they didn’t grapple enough with what ‘government’ ownership meant.

Things have changed now.

Since the Myanmar ‘turnaround’ a new generation of donor managers are now redefining the aid approach. And it seems as though it has flipped around - with the Myanmar government now on centre stage. At one level, that is a good thing. The Thein Sein government should be a primary point of call for owning new plans based around the Nay Pyi Taw Accord.

Yet one growing criticism is that the idea of ‘society’ ownership has dropped too much off the agenda. Understanding the web of civil society organisations, ethnic groups, opposition parties and local community groups in Myanmar – and all their diverse and potentially conflicting ideas – may simply be too hard for a donor system now intent on disbursing money and scaling up.

This is interesting, because it goes to the core of how Myanmar’s transition is viewed. From the outside the ‘turnaround’ may have felt like a quantum shift in Myanmar politics.

But for many Myanmar people in the aid sector, the changes in government since 2010 are seen in a much more nuanced way. This means that the current leap in donor emphasis – from ‘society’ ownership to ‘government’ ownership – is seen by many to be a little too stark.

Of course, the task of nicely building both ‘government’ ownership and ‘society’ ownership into some kind of grand consensus is impossible- as they are far too many criss-crossing tensions.

But the alternative – of tacking on a few civil society consultation meetings onto a ‘government’ ownership approach – is lazy, and may ultimately be self-defeating.

I don’t envy donor managers. Whichever way they tread on these questions there is a potential minefield.

And for these ones, a bunch of Norwegian demining experts may not be enough.