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Dry Zone Coordination Workshop
Inya Lake Hotel Yangon
9 March 2010
Participants: See
attached list
1. Opening,
Background and Objectives - Chris Kaye,
Co-Chair FSATG
All participants were welcomed and asked to
introduce themselves.
In the wake of last year’s drought and
further to the high profile meeting in
December where Professor Stiglitz discussed
the priority actions needed to support the
rural economy study, both the Food Security
and Agriculture Thematic Group (UN/NGOs) and
the Food Security and Agricultural Working
group (NGO/CBOs) recognised the opportunity
to capitalise on the interest and
willingness from the government to engage.
The message that has come from the
Government in recent months is that support
to the dry zone is welcome and a priority.
To take advantage of this window of
opportunity, both coordination forums agreed
that a workshop was needed to better
understand how to collectively strengthen
support to the dry zone. It was understood
that a pre-requisite is to develop common
understanding of the situation, issues and
priority needs in the Dry Zone.
The objectives of the workshop were given
as:
1. To gain a more complete understanding of
vulnerability throughout the dry zone
2. To gain a better understanding of the
Governments vision and plans for
agricultural development in the dry zone and
how the assistance community can support
3. To map agencies access, programme
capacities and assessment data.
4. Agreeing on priority areas of
interventions (assessment and programmes)
It was reminded that assistance actors in
Myanmar have an obligation to work
collectively to align resources, ensure a
common understanding and appreciation of the
government’s priorities and identify gaps
and respond to the needs of the most
vulnerable. It was noted that comprehensive
assessment of needs was a challenge as
uniform access was not granted to all.
However, the obligation remained that all
actors should continue to work on the
principle of need and not just to provide
support in areas we happen to have been
granted access. The workshop presented an
opportunity to ensure a common understanding
of what we know, as well as what we don’t
know – which could then be packaged into a
plan to discuss with Government
counterparts.
In closing, it was remarked that joint
commitment to maintaining momentum generated
during the workshop will be key if an
initial plan of action for support to the
dry zone was to be useful. It was hoped that
such a plan would be used as an advocacy
tool with the government to help strengthen
relations and ensure a more rational and
prioritised approach to addressing food
insecurity and supporting the rural
livelihoods.
2. Food
Security and Livelihoods in the Dry Zone;
Challenges and policy and Programme Response
- Shafique Rahman (UNDP)
Shafique Rahman provided a review of 10
areas of challenges to the rural economy
emanating from Prof. Stiglitz’s analysis and
the extent to which these challenges were
being pursued according to the Government’s
draft National Medium Term priority
Framework.
Following the presentation, 5 working groups
were formed in order to reflect on the
challenges and to determine the areas of
work that agencies were able to align
themselves with. The outcome of each working
group is represented in the attached matrix.
3. MAPPING
ASESSMENTS, PRESENCE AND ACTIVITIES (Siddharth
Krishnaswarmy – WFP)
Based on inputs collected from participating
and contributing agencies, a presentation
was given which provided a geographic review
of areas where assessments had been
undertaken. Further maps were shared
providing detail of agency presence. It was
made clear that it was know the information
was incomplete and all agencies were urged
to continue to provide more updates to the
FSWG Coordinator and WFP VAM. The
presentation nevertheless highlighted that
Agencies/NGO’s all work in areas where there
had been little or no systematic analysis or
surveys. Further, it was evident that given
the limited assessment information, the
distribution of agencies across the dry zone
was not seemingly rational, based on needs
and capacities to support. It was argued
that we need to get to a point where we
identify not what CAN be done....but what
SHOULD be done, by analysing what is
limiting our access to these areas – and
what is facilitating.
This was further proved through the groups,
concluding that generally decision of
presence is based on opportunity such as
government invitation (i.e. MoH),
encouragement from Agencies (i.e. UNDP, WFP)
informal channels (i.e. Church connection),
etc. Mostly activities are choices of
opportunity rather than decision based on
needs. Many organisations reported that
assessments were undertaken only after
arrival.
The exercise highlighted the need for a more
structured approach – that can be undertaken
with Government counterparts and that
covered the entire dry zone.
4.
Conclusions and Next Steps
The meeting concluded that the following had
been achieved:
a) There was broad based appreciation of the
priorities of the Government as laid out in
the NMTPF and the gaps in the proposed
interventions relative to the Stiglitz
agenda. The exercise of reviewing agency
capacities had allowed the identification of
areas where the assistance community can
contribute.
b) A number of areas requiring further study
had been identified through the work group
exercises
c) Participants had developed a more
complete sense of the areas where we work,
what we do, as well as where we have no
presence.
d) It was widely agreed that the decisions
on where we worked in the dry zone lacked a
clear or consistent rationale and
highlighted the need for a more
comprehensive and transparent assessment to
match needs and response capacities.
Immediate follow up actions included:
1. Compilation and consolidation of workshop
outputs.
Action: Working group leads to
summarise group outputs and send to FSA for
consolidation. Deadline 12.3.10
2. Review of outcomes and agreement for a
process to develop initial plan of action
for the Dry Zone to support engagement with
GoUM / MoAI.
Action: First reflection at FSATG meeting
17.3.10. Dissemination of complete workshop
report and outcomes by 19.3.10
The workshop adjourned
at 3.30pm
•
Attendees at
the Dry Zone Coordination Meeting on 9th
March 2010
Inya Lake Hotel, Yangon
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