Economics of Peace and Conflict

By Myanmar Peace Monitor of Burma News International • October 30, 2013

The issue of business interests and development in the peace process has become a controversial yet unavoidable topic in efforts to resolve ongoing conflict in the country. While many are worried that business is taking precedence over politics in the peace negotiations, the demands of NSAGs for business concessions, development and fair distribution of natural resources are a reminder that ethnic leaders recognise that economic power and political power are two sides of the same coin. At the same time, business concessions in ceasefire talks are also seen by some to be a ploy by the government to turn ethnic leaders into “mini-cronies” while also performing a public relations stunt to attract more foreign investors.

Economics is therefore both a driver and a solution to the conflict in Myanmar. Unfair distribution of resource revenues, negative impacts of development projects on locals and high levels of poverty have led to three types of violence: armed conflict, violence against development projects and communal conflict. Increased militarisation over protection of large project sites has also been identified as the cause of ongoing clashes between NSAGs and government forces. At the same time, development projects and business opportunities are crucial in alleviating poverty and sustaining NSAGs‟ power and survival throughout the duration of the peace process.

This report aims to clarify the complex processes of solving economic grievances related to the peace process. Examining how these efforts work and how the different actors, policies and projects make up a larger framework may help in assessing how well they respond to the roots of conflict. It especially tries to understand how the many different ministries, committees, international donors, CBOs, businesses (domestic and foreign) and NSAGs work together, overlap, or contradict each other in achieving economic and development goals for national peace.

Download the report here.

အစီရင္ခံစာ ျမန္မာဘာသာကို ဤေနရာတြင္ ေဒါင္းလုပ္ရယူႏိုင္ပါသည္။