Identification and Assessment of the Poor, Food Insecure and Vulnerable in the Union of Myanmar
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EC/FAO CO-OPERATIVE PROGRAMME Identification and Assessment of the Poor, Food Insecure and Vulnerable in the Union of Myanmar GCP/INT/952/EC-MYA (8) FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION OF THE UNITED NATIONS Yangon, January 2007 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The mission team wishes to thank all who contributed for the success of the mission in Myanmar and to value the collaboration and assistance received from a large number of governmental, non-governmental and UN agencies, especially the Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation. Further, a special appreciation should be expressed to Myanmar farmers, particularly female household heads and villagers, for their open and genuine information during the field assessments. The mission also wishes to express its gratitude to the European Commission – both its Headquarters and Delegation in Thailand – for funding the project. Very special acknowledgments are due to the FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific and the Japan-funded FAO/Asia FIVIMS Trust Fund Project GCP/RAS/170/JPN for their extended technical support and guidance on the implementation of the project and to the United Nations (UN) Office on Drugs and Crime and the UN World Food Programme for their generous provision of technical and logistics assistance in the field. The findings and recommendations included in this report solely reflect the opinions of the Food Security Analysis Expert/Mission Team Leader and the Vulnerability Information Expert and not necessarily of other members of the team or the organizations that provided financial and technical assistance. TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND MAIN RECOMMENDATIONS................................................... I SUMMARY OF FINDINGS .....................................................................................................................III SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDATIONS................................................................................................. XV 1 – INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................1 2 – EXISTING DATA INVENTORY AND ASSESSMENT ..............................................................5 2A – INCOME AND EXPENDITURE DATA.................................................................................6 2B – NUTRITIONAL OUTCOMES AND VITAL STATISTICS ...............................................21 2C – HYGIENE AND FACILITIES...............................................................................................29 2D – EDUCATION ..........................................................................................................................37 2E – ESTIMATION OF LANDLESS.............................................................................................44 2F – IDENTIFICATION OF SURPLUS/DEFICIT AREAS........................................................52 3 – FOOD INSECURITY AND VULNERABILITY ........................................................................58 4 – CASE STUDIES .............................................................................................................................78 4A – INTRODUCTION...................................................................................................................80 4B – KOKANG (SPECIAL REGION1)...............................................................................................93 4C – WA (SPECIAL REGION 2) .......................................................................................................102 5 – CASE STUDY...............................................................................................................................118 MYANMAR DRY ZONE ....................................................................................................................118 6 – MAIN FINDINGS, CONCLUSIONS AND RECCOMMENDATIONS .................................136 ANNEXES...........................................................................................................................................158 ANNEX 1 – TERMS OF REFERENCE...............................................................................................159 ANNEX 2 – OVERALL ITINERARY .........................................................................................175 ANNEX 3 – DETAILED ITINERARY AND MAIN ACTIVITIES...........................................177 ANNEX 4 – VISITED VILLAGES...............................................................................................179 ANNEX 5 – LIST OF PERSONS MET AND INSTITUTIONS VISITED ...................................180 ANNEX 6 – MEMBER OF NATIONAL TECHNICAL TEAM ..............................................................185 ANNEX 7 – INFORMAL MEETING WITH THE FIVIMS NATIONAL TECHNICAL TEAM ................186 ANNEX 8 – DATA REQUESTED AND RECEIVED FROM SLRD........................................................189 ANNEX 9 – FIVIMS MISSION - VILLAGE CHECKLIST .................................................................190 ANNEX 10 – FIVIMS MISSION - AGRICULTURE CHECKLIST ......................................................193 ANNEX 11 – FIVIMS MISSION - HOUSEHOLD CHECKLIST .........................................................196 ANNEX 12 – FIVIMS MISSION - MEASUREMENT SHEET ............................................................201 ANNEX 13 – NUTRIENT REQUIREMENT TABLE MOH..................................................................203 ANNEX 14 – WFP COMMUNITY QUESTIONNAIRE .......................................................................205 ANNEX 15 – WFP HOUSEHOLD QUESTIONNAIRE .......................................................................208 ANNEX 16 – CONVERSTION FACTORS ..........................................................................................214 ANNEX 17 – LIVESTOCK UNIT, CONVERSION FACTORS..............................................................215 ANNEX 18 – ROUTINE HEALTH ACTIVITIES DATA FLOW...........................................................216 ANNEX 19 – PLANT DICTIONARY .................................................................................................218 ANNEX 20 – MYANMAR CENSUS FOR AGRICULTURE 2003 .........................................................220 ANNEX 21 – GEO CODE USED .......................................................................................................225 ANNEX 22 – EXCEPTS FROM WFP NUTRITIONAL SURVEY 2005 ................................................228 ANNEX 23 – LIST OF DATA SOURCES QUOTED AND/OR UTILISED BY THE MISSION.....................236 ENDNOTES........................................................................................................................................241 Executive Summary and Main Recommendations The urgent need of collecting and collating vulnerability and food insecurity indicators as a priority action for defining an effective development and humanitarian assistance in Myanmar has compelled the Delegation of the European Commission (EC) in Thailand and the FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific (RAP) to joint their efforts for financing and implementing a Baby Project GCP/INT/952/EC- MYA(8) that is aimed at preparing a report on the state of food insecurity and vulnerability in Myanmar. To achieve this goal, a mission was carried out in Myanmar by international consultants – a Food Security Analysis Expert/Mission Team Leader and a Vulnerability Information Expert – and a national Nutrition Expert 2006 with technical backstopping from RAP. The mission arrived in Yangon on 24th August 2006 and left Myanmar on 7th November. As required by the terms of reference (TOR) for the mission that recognized serious lack of reliable, timely and quality information on the food insecure and vulnerable, Chapter 2 provides a preliminary inventory and quality assessment of the existing data and information in Myanarm. Special emphasis was given on the identification of gaps and inconsistencies that users should pay due attention to when the information is intended to be used for “effective” development and humanitarian assistance in Myanmar. Chapter 3 addresses the first ever vulnerability profile produced at district level, while the report contains the outcomes of a few case studies on poor, food insecure and vulnerable areas: Special Region 1 (Kokang) and Special Region 2 (Wa) examined in Chapters 4, and Dry Zone in the central part of Myanmar illustrated in Chapter 5. Finally, detailed descriptions of the findings and related recommendations are included in Chapter 6. i ii Summary of findings The mission verified that the current status of data or proxy data that could provide insight into food availability, access, stability and utilization is extremely scarce, of poor quality, and sometimes contradictory in Myanmar. Most official data are available only at the first or second administrative level and thus can provide only a very feeble basis for targeting vulnerable and food insecure populations at a geographically appropriate level. But even at these levels the very low data quality can be easily identified. In particular, when trying to use time-series data, the poor data reliability frequently hamper making any conclusion. Comparisons of same or similar data, collected by different institutions, sometimes result in extremely contradictory results. The main reasons for this low data quality are several: underreporting, limitations of data collection and supervision, poor data transmission and compilation,