Tag Archives: Burma

* Women Journalists In Myanmar Are Numerous But Still Stalled by Stereotypes

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By Susan Cunningham
Mizzima
12 November 2016

Women are strongly represented in Myanmar newsrooms but few reach decision-making levels, reflecting the many obstacles they face in advancing in their professions. In Yangon, professional opportunities are growing and society is receptive to women in many media occupations. For those working in the states and regions, however, options are severely limited by traditional attitudes about women’s roles and fears about personal safety.

The findings were included in a report presented last week in Yangon at the 5th Media Development Conference by Agneta Soderberg-Jacobson, a senior gender advisor with Sweden’s Fojo Media Institute.

The report, “Gender in the Myanmar Media Landscape”, is the product of research in the past year with 298 respondents working in Myanmar print, online and broadcast media. Fojo conducted the research by surveys and focus groups with support from International Media Support (IMS). The respondents, more than half of them women, were journalists, senior editors, media managers, and representatives of media organizations. They worked in Yangon, Kayin and Shan states, and the Sagaing region.

Mothers not wanted

Of the 2,000 accredited journalists in Myanmar today, 60% are women. However, even in Yangon, the majority hold low-ranking and mid-level positions in the media industry with men dominating decision making.  Continue reading →

* As Myanmar looks to develop, a value-added revolution is needed in the countryside

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By Susan Cunningham
Mizzima News
24 September 2016

Agriculture must be at the forefront of Myanmar’s anti-poverty strategies not only because nearly 70% of Myanmar’s population live in rural areas: of the total number of poor people, 84% reside in the countryside. More than half the workforce is employed in agriculture, yet the majority of farmers own less than 10 acres of planting land and lack access to electricity and clean drinking water.

These stark statistics from UNDP highlight what could arguably be termed the elephant in the room – the need to upgrade Myanmar’s agricultural sector but ideally in a sustainable way.

Backbreaking rice planting in Myanmar - by Hong Sar for Mizzima

Planting rice in Bago State, Myanmar.  Credit: Hong Sar/Mizzima

One man understands the challenges particularly well. Tin Htut Oo, an agricultural economist, retired as director-general of agricultural planning in the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Irrigation (MOALI) in 2009. He is today CEO of Agribusiness and Rural Development Consultants and chairman of the Agriculture Group of Yoma Strategic Holdings.

A former advisor to President Thein Sein, as the chairman of the National Economic & Social Advisory Council beginning in 2012, he led a working group that drafted a policy paper, entitled “From Rice Bowl to Food Basket,” outlining pathways for modernization of the country’s agricultural and food sector. Earlier this year, group members presented the proposals to key ministers and officials in the agriculture, commerce, and planning and finance ministries and to … MORE

* Myanmar: 45 Million Mobile Phones and the $19 3G Smartphone

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True smartphone on sale in Yangon - Credit: Susan Cunningham

Only in Myanmar: the $19 3G smartphone

By Susan Cunningham
Forbes.com | August 10, 2016

The phone in the above photo is a shiny new $19.44 smartphone. When I saw this for sale in small shop on the corner of Anawrahta and Pansodan streets in Yangon a few weeks ago, the 23,000 kyat (at 1,183 kyat/US$1) price included one SIM card. As you can see, it’s 3G capable and has slots for two SIM cards.

Later, I saw the same Thai brand, complete with Thai packaging, among the familiar and strange brands of phones for sale on sidewalk tables, like the ones in the photo below. Since bargaining comes with the territory and these phones aren’t being sold in a shop with overhead costs, do they cost even less than $19? Such a low price for a new phone must also affect the pricing of secondhand smartphones, regardless of brand.

Myanmar (Burma) has three mobile carriers: the government’s MPT and the two private carriers: Qatar’s Ooredoo and Norway’s Telenor. Two years ago this month, Ooredoo introduced its service with 1,500 kyat SIM cards; MPT had dropped its Sim price from the equivalent of $300 to 1,500 kyat some months before that, but the private company turned on the advertising and promotion firehose and Telenor followed suit a few months later. A decade ago, SIM cards were in the $1,500 range. Nowadays, some Myanmar people have two phones, each with a different carrier, because coverage varies in different parts of the country. And since a SIM card costs less than $1.50, why not?  Continue reading →

* Do Myanmar’s Rohingya Really Need Citizenship Now?

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By Susan Cunningham
Forbes.com

The more I learn about the plight of Rohingya, the stateless people of northwestern Myanmar, the more I think that foreign diplomats and op-ed writers may be wrong to be pushing the citizenship plank now. Perhaps there are more urgent priorities.

I have been reading and thinking about this since I talked recently with Lilianne Fan, a research fellow with the Humanitarian Policy Group of Britain’s Overseas Development Institute (ODI) think tank. She had just returned from her second visit to the four camps in Aceh State, Indonesia, which are sheltering nearly 2,000 Myanmar Rohingya and Bangladeshis that were rescued in late May from three boats abandoned by traffickers.

On one boat the 600-plus survivors had been adrift for more than two months and another 100 people had been killed in fighting among the passengers. She is a co-founder of the Geutanyue Foundation, an Aceh NGO that is among the many large and small organizations providing aid to the boat people. She has been visiting Myanmar, including Rakhine State, since the Cyclone Nargis disaster in 2008 … MORE

* Myanmar Digital Startup NEX Wins 2nd Round Funds From Blibros

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Myanmar digital startup NEX has won second round funding of  US$150,000 from Singapore’s Blibros Group, the privately-held investment arm of Sweden’s Böcker family. Yes, this is the family of Magnus Böcker, CEO of the Singapore Exchange and former CEO of Nasdaq OMX Nordic. NEX got its initial angel investment of $50,000 last year from Singapore  investor Ned Phillips, formerly of  E*Trade and Chi-East.

I met NEX’s founder and CEO, Ye Myat Min, who’s all of 23, a few months ago when I was in Yangon. NEX had 15 employees then; now there’s 20.  The new investment will enable the company to build on Fyre, its Web-based software introduced in May  that enables small businesses to quickly set up an online storefront. One of the first customers was TAC, the country’s first authorized re-seller of Apple products.  ”Most small shops want an app, but they can’t afford to get their own. Instead, they can pay … MORE