Myanmar Funders Through UNDP Include Japan, UK, Australia and Italy, Records Show

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis

UNITED NATIONS, October 1 --  On Myanmar, questions have arisen about which UN agencies and countries have funded "capacity building" of the government which threw monks into the back of trucks and which fired bullets into crowds, including the point-blank shooting of Japanese photographer Kenji Nagai. Well, Japan itself, through the UN Development Program, provided funding, as did the UK, Norway, Italy, Australia, Sweden and New Zealand.  Internal UNDP budget documents obtained by Inner City Press -- click here to view -- put the size of UNDP's program in 2007 at $20,869,000, substantially larger than UNDP's budget in North Korea which has gotten the agency into such ongoing trouble, for among other things accepting staff chosen by the government. UNDP sources tell Inner City Press this takes place in Myanmar as well, and that all but eight of UNDP's 50 staff members in the country are nationals of Myanmar, mostly provided directly by the government. Here's a screen shot of UNDP's Myanmar budget:

            In a speech at UN Headquarters on Monday, announced the "Partnership for Democratic Governance," UNDP Administrator Kemal Dervis said that  

"For UNDP, two principles are essential for the success of all development assistance efforts. First, there must be national ownership and a national dynamic that drives the overall effort. External resources or expertise can never substitute for sovereign national ownership – they can only complement and support the national drive. Second, the external resources that are deployed should be temporary, and the way they are deployed must facilitate national capacity building."

            But what if a government's "national drive" consists of shooting its own citizens when they demonstrate for democracy? Doesn't building the "capacity" of such a government amount to assisting in repression?  Dervis' mantra sounded quite similar to the speech, also given Monday at the UN, by Myanmar's foreign minister U Nyan Win, that

"It must be stressed that the destiny of each and every country can only be determined by its government... However, when the mob became unruly and provocative, they were compelled to declare a curfew. Subsequently, when protesters ignored their warnings, they had to take action to restore the situation. Normalcy had now returned in Myanmar."

            But what kind of normalcy? And will UNDP and the above-named nation, most poignantly Japan, just keep funding it? What safeguards are in place to ensure that that money, as fungible, does not support the repression of the Burmese people? As Inner City Press reported in June, the payment of seeming salary is misused. One Myanmar insider said, "at times, the UNDP had over 900 project staff on the various sub-projects of the HDI programs.  The majority of these were required to pay 1-2 months of their annual salaries back into UNDP national staff in order to have these jobs." Click here to see (clearer) UNDP budget documents.

  Again, because a number of Inner City Press' UN sources go out of their way to express commitment to serving the poor, and while it should be unnecessary, Inner City Press is compelled to conclude this installment in a necessarily-ongoing series by saluting the stated goals of the UN agencies and many of their staff. Keep those cards, letters and emails coming, and phone calls too, we apologize for any phone tag, but please continue trying, and keep the information flowing.

Feedback: Editorial [at] innercitypress.com

Search WWW Search innercitypress.com

Other, earlier Inner City Press are listed here, and some are available in the ProQuest service.

            Copyright 2006-07 Inner City Press, Inc. To request reprint or other permission, e-contact Editorial [at] innercitypress.com -