LIFT Annual Report LIFT 2017 Annual Report 2017 The Livelihoods and Food Security Trust Fund UNOPS Fund Management Office 12(O) Pyi Thu Lane, 7 Mile, Mayangone Township, Yangon, Myanmar Phone: +95 1 65 7280~87 Fax: +95 1 65 72 79 LIFT is managed by [email protected] | lift-fund.org | facebook.com/liftfund LIFT Annual Report 2017 Acknowledgements We thank the governments of Australia, Denmark, the European Union, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America for their kind contributions to improving the liveli- hoods and food security of rural poor people in Myanmar. Their support to the Livelihoods and Food Security Trust Fund (LIFT) is gratefully acknowledged. We would also like to thank the Mitsubishi Corporation, as LIFT’s first private sector donor. Disclaimer This internal document is based on informa- tion from projects funded by LIFT in 2017 and supported with financial assistance from Australia, Denmark, the European Union, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United States of America, and the Mitsubishi Corporation. The views expressed herein should not be taken to reflect the official opinion of the LIFT donors. Exchange rate: this report converts MMK into USD at 1355:1, which was the average exchange rate during the year. Photography by LIFT and partners The Livelihoods and Food Security Trust Fund UNOPS Fund Management Office 12(O) Pyi Thu Lane, 7 Mile, Mayangone Township, Yangon, Myanmar Phone: +95 1 65 7280~87 Fax: +95 1 65 72 79 [email protected] | lift-fund.org | facebook.com/ liftfund This report builds on LIFT’s previous annual reports, which can be found at: www.lift-fund.org/publications Contents 6.0 Working for inclusive and Policy Engagement 95 95 Nutrition transformative change 5 97 Agriculture 99 Land Tenure 101 Mechanisation Private Public Partnership 101 LIFT Technical Assistance to the 1.0 Department of Rural Development of the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Executive Summary 7 Irrigation 7 Executive Summary 11 Lessons Identified 7.0 Value for Money 105 2.0 105 Value for Money (VfM) Throughout LIFT’s Programme and Project Lifecycles 106 VfM Criteria and Metrics Results 15 110 Programmes’ use of VfM results in 2017 15 Introduction 110 Strengthening LIFT’s VfM in 2018 and 15 LIFT’s Logical Framework Beyond 15 LIFT’s Indicator Results and Achievements 31 Summary of LIFT’s 2017 Results 32 Activity Monitoring 8.0 Fund Management 113 3.0 114 Allocation of LIFT funds 115 Fund Flow and Partner Performance Finance Geographic Areas 35 117 Monitoring and Evaluation for 36 Delta Accountability and Learning (MEAL) 44 Dry Zone 118 Knowledge Management and Learning 50 Rakhine 119 Communications 56 Uplands 9.0 4.0 Annexes 122 Thematic Programmes 67 122 LIFT's Active Projects and Locations 67 Financial Inclusion And Private Sector 124 LIFT's Logical Framework Partnerships 127 On-going Projects in 2017 73 Safe And Rewarding Migration 130 Project Activity Charts 79 Civil Society 130 Delta 144 Financial Inclusion 133 Dry Zone 147 Private Sector 136 Rakhine Partnerships 5.0 138 Uplands 148 Agriculture 141 Migration Projects financial 143 Land inclusion Cross Cutting Areas 85 149 Achievement of LIFT Financial Inclusion 85 Nutrition Partners as of 31 December 2017 86 Resilience 151 Policy Engagement in 2017 88 Social Protection 157 LIFT Studies Delivered in 2017 89 Gender 166 LIFT Theory of Change (ToC) Abbreviations and acronyms ADB IP Asian Development Bank Implementing Partner ASEAN LBVD Association of Southeast Asian Nations Livestock Breeding and Veterinary Department CBO Community-based Organisation LEARN Leveraging Essential Nutrition Actions To CSO Reduce Malnutrition project Civil Society Organisation MADB DAR Myanmar Agriculture Development Bank Department of Agricultural Research MCCT DC Maternal and Child Cash Transfer Donor Consortium MEAL DoA Monitoring and Evaluation for Department of Agriculture Accountability and Learning DoF MFI Department of Fisheries Microfinance Institution DRD MMK Department for Rural Development Myanmar Kyat DSW MoAI Department of Social Welfare Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation FMO PGMF Fund Management Office Pact Global Microfinance FB PoVAW Fund Board Prevention of Violence Against Women Law FDI QSEM Foreign Direct Investment Qualitative Social and Economic Monitoring (report) FRD Financial Regulatory Department SPPRG Social Policy & Poverty Research Group FSWG Food Security Working Group SRI System of Rice Intensification GRET Group de Recherches et d’Echanges UNOPS Technologiques United Nations Office for Project Services IDP VDC Internally Displaced Person Village Development Committee IFC VSLA International Finance Corporation Village Savings and Loan Association HH WASH Households Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene INGO WHH International Non-Governmental Welthungerhilfe Organisation 4 LIFT Annual Report 2017 LIFT support, amounting to USD 451 million, has reached around 9.4 million rural Working for people, roughly 26 per cent of the country’s rural population. Projects are implemented by partners, who inclusive and are local and international non-government organisations, UN agencies, civil society actors, academic and research bodies, and the private transformative sector. LIFT provides technical support and guidance to the government of Myanmar. In 2017, LIFT started new nutrition activities change in Chin State and launched the migration programme supporting men and women migrants to make their migration safer and more empowering. The programmes in the Delta, Dry Zone, Rakhine and Uplands geo- graphic areas continued and achieved good results. The financial inclusion programme The multi-donor Livelihoods and Food grew and now reaches 2.1 million people Security Trust Fund (LIFT) has been operating with microfinance financial services. LIFT in Myanmar since 2010, helping poor, rural expanded its work in conflict-affected areas people to reach their full economic potential in 2017. These programmes, the civil society and resilience through improved nutrition, engagement programme and projects working income diversification and skills development. with people with disabilities and the elderly, put LIFT works to ensure no one is left behind the LIFT strategy 2014-2018 into operation, by in the rural transition occurring in Myanmar helping target beneficiary groups to step‘ up’ and that the poorest and most vulnerable into commercial value chains, ‘step out’ of benefit from the growth, change and oppor- marginalised farming and into more profitable tunities the structural transformation of agricultural and non-farm support jobs, and to Myanmar’s economy brings. LIFT does this ‘hang in’, gaining better nutrition and skills that by designing and implementing programmes will enable them to later ‘step up’ or ‘step out’. that target the most vulnerable people and There are many factors at work in Myanmar’s the hard-to-reach geographies of the country. structural transformation that are contributing Research funded by LIFT and conducted to changes for people in rural areas. In 2017, in 2016 and 2017 provides clear evidence mechanisation, microfinance and migration of the structural transformation occurring had significant impact on the rural population in Myanmar’s economy.1 Rural wages are in Myanmar across the four geographic areas increasing significantly in real terms, which where LIFT works. encourages farmers to mechanise operations LIFT’s migration programme is the largest and grow crops that are more profitable than funding window for migration in Myanmar. rice. Aquaculture, especially in Ayeyarwady Migration from rural areas continues to and Bago regions, is also growing quickly, increase as jobs in urban areas attracted rural because it is more profitable than rice people looking to ‘step out’ of agriculture. farming. Aquaculture employs nearly four LIFT’s partners work with migrants and times more labour per acre than rice farming, aspiring migrants to ensure they have the which further increases rural wages through skills, financial literacy and support to ‘step increased demand for labour and increased out’ safely to new opportunities that deliver 1 Michigan State University, demand for feed and fish processing services. the employment and financial goals they have ‘Agricultural mechanization In research sites in Ayeyarwady and Bago, for themselves and their families. and structural transformation the number of non-farm jobs in rural areas Migration is not the ‘stepping out’ solution in Myanmar’s Ayeyarwady has increased rapidly since 2012.2 3 Research for everyone. People also choose to stay in Delta’, September 2016. in the Dry Zone in 2017, also shows rapid their rural communities and take advantage 2 Michigan State University, growth in non-farm enterprises, where since of new economic opportunities in agriculture Food Security Policy Project 2011, the number of retail stores more than and the rural non-farm economy. In 2017, research, 2016. doubled, agriculture trading and processing LIFT’s Agribusiness Finance Programme 3 World Bank and trebled and rental service providers more delivered 87 million in financing for agricul- Enlightened Myanmar than quadrupled. Non-farm income, including tural equipment valued at USD 106 million Research Foundation, remittances is the most important start-up that was purchased by rural entrepreneurs ‘Livelihoods & social change capital for these businesses.4