Challenge
Myanmar’s situation is marked by political turmoil after a military coup in February 2021. This event triggered widespread protests and resistance, resulting in challenges, including a harsh crackdown on dissent, human rights violations, and economic difficulties.
Gathering information in such an environment is difficult due to government censorship and surveillance, necessitating innovative and secure data collection methods. Here, Premise plays a crucial role with its network of data Contributors, providing reliable, near-real-time information to raise awareness of the situation on the ground.
Solution
In collaboration with three partners working in development research, Premise conducted three surveys to assess in-depth the political, social, and economic landscape of Myanmar as well as the attitudes and behaviors of participants, collecting a total of 1,049 responses.
Findings
Pro-democracy movement and its impacts
The survey aimed to uncover the depth of community involvement in the pro-democracy movement in Myanmar. We collected information about people’s support for the movement, how much they trust it, if they participate in pro-democracy activities, and how life challenges affect their involvement.
The results showed that just over a third (34%) of Burmese people identify with the pro-democracy movement, another third (34%) do not, and nearly a third (32%) prefer not to answer. Additionally, 41% of respondents feel overwhelmed and exhausted by managing the challenges that come from the movement, while 30% feel neutral about it.
Finance, jobs and livelihoods
To better understand the current landscape of people’s incomes and expenses, this survey asked respondents about loans and savings, household size, sources of and changes in income, living expenses, and if they plan to move abroad.
We found that a plurality of people in Myanmar (28%) rely on remittances as their primary source of income. Of the 60% of respondents reporting that their household income decreased in the first half of 2023, 27% had to borrow money from friends and relatives, and 25% used savings for living expenses.
Additionally, 71% of participants said men are the highest earners in their households, and 29% said someone in their household plans to move abroad within the next year.
Changes in daily life
Premise and a partner conducting research and analysis to support major aid actors ran this survey to understand what’s happening in the respondents’ communities lately, asking about good and bad changes in the past three months. The survey also asked how changes in electricity, schools, roads, healthcare, and jobs affect their daily lives. The results revealed that 69% think the average income in their community is insufficient to cover the cost of living. Additionally, 57% of respondents mentioned that some people in their community are dealing with malnutrition.
Breakdowns in healthcare, education, and access to utilities (e.g., water, electricity, waste collection) have severe effects on daily living, with the effects of healthcare breakdowns being the most widely cited (64%) as severe.
Implications
The data collected through these surveys offers invaluable insights into Myanmar’s dynamic and challenging environment and can serve as a critical resource to inform policies, interventions, and initiatives to address the needs of Myanmar’s population. By closely monitoring such complex situations, we can foster a more in-depth understanding of the evolving circumstances and execute more precisely targeted responses, even when collecting data through traditional methods is not possible.