EBO Funds to Target Migrants and IDPs

Image by m.gifford via Flickr

By SAW YAN NAING

Friday, December 4, 2009

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The Euro-Burma Office (EBO) will focus funding on Burmese migrant workers and internally displaced persons (IDPs) in ethnic areas where armed conflicts are active, according to the organization's Executive Director, Harn Yawnghwe.

The decision came after the meeting between the Brussels-based EBO and Burmese opposition, civil society groups and ethnic groups in Chiang Mai in northern Thailand from Dec. 1 to 2.

Yawnghwe said his organization wants to strengthen civil society groups assisting migrant workers and IDPs because such people are in need.

Any group wanting to assist migrant workers or IDPs in armed conflict zones in eastern Burma can submit proposals to the EU donors.

“Euro Burma want to set up committees to assist these groups and want to give funds to them. Those who are interested are asked to submit proposals,” said Dr. Thiha Maung, who attended the meeting and is the director of the National Health and Education Committee's (NHEC) health program.

It is likely that the EBO will secure some funding for exile-based aid groups as funding for cross-border activities is unstable and many Western government donors are not willingly providing further cross-border aid to nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in exile, he added.

Founded in 1997, the Brussels-based EBO helps the Burmese democracy movement prepare for transition to democracy and keeps the international community informed about the situation in Burma.

Transparency and accountability of funding among border-based NGOs were also discussed at the meeting.

“International donor countries such as Sweden, Norway, Canada and Australia are hoping for change in Burma in 2010 and want to focus aid directly inside Burma if the situation improves after 2010 election,” Thiha Maung said.

Harn Yawnghwe also said the EBO will provide financial supports to opposition parties or ethnic groups that will contest in the general elections in 2010 if they need support. This should not be misconstrued as EBO support for the Burmese regime 2008's constitution and planned 2010 elections, he said.

The aim of supporting those groups is to let them strive for democracy and ethnic rights within any political space that might be opened up by the Burmese regime, he added.

Observers said international donors indicated they want to focus humanitarian assistance directly inside Burma after they identified problems with cross-border aid.

However, observers said both internally-based aid and cross-border aid are needed since both reach different target populations, whether deep inside Burma or on the Thai-Burmese border.

Due to international donors reducing their funding and distancing themselves from cross-border aid projects, Mae Sot-based Mae Tao Clinic is concerned about funding, which has been cut and reduced.

The number of outpatients coming to the clinic has grown by about 20 percent per year, however.

The clinic, which treats Burmese migrants, refugees and Burmese people who cross the border for medical treat, is struggling with a “major funding crisis.” It faces a predicted shortfall of about US $750,000 in 2010, amounting to 25 percent of its operating budget, according to Dr Cynthia Maung writing on the clinic's Web site on Oct. 27.

Other border-based NGO aid groups are also struggling with the funding crisis, which has resulted in anomalous situations across the border. Schoolteachers in Mon State being provided for by funding from donors such as the NHEC, for example, have been working without salaries since June.