Project profile — Support to Decentralized Governance in Burma

• Myanmar (100.00%)

• Public sector policy and administrative management:
Public sector policy and administrative management (15110) (10.00%)
Decentralisation and support to subnational government (15112) (50.00%)
Democratic participation and civil society (15150) (30.00%)
Legislatures and political parties (15152) (10.00%)

• Gender equality (significant objective)
• Environmental sustainability (cross-cutting) (not targeted)
• Participatory development and good governance (significant objective)
• Trade development (not targeted)
• Biodiversity (not targeted)
• Climate change mitigation (not targeted)
• Climate Change Adaptation (not targeted)
• Urban issues (not targeted)
• Desertification (not targeted)
• Children's issues (not targeted)
• Youth Issues (not targeted)
• Indigenous Issues (not targeted)
• Disability (not targeted)
• ICT as a tool for development (not targeted)

This project aims to promote improved knowledge and understanding of federalism among key stakeholders such as government officials, leaders of political parties and ethnic minority groups. The project targets 10,800 members of the general population, 740 local government officials, and 1,500 members of civil society, including women’s groups. Support is also provided to promote a better understanding of gender equality and the importance of involving women in the political process. Activities include: (1) training and technical support to government officials in state and regional administrations to take on new tasks required for implementing decentralization under a federal system; (2) training of key political stakeholders, including newly elected political representatives, on how to promote gender equality in decentralized governance structures in a federal system; (3) the design and delivery of awareness raising outreach programs on key aspects of federalism tofor members of the general public and civil society organizations; (4) developing curricula and training materials on federalism, gender equality and decentralization; and (5) capacity building of local civil society organizations including training of 120 trainers.

The expected intermediate outcomes for this project are: (1) increased integration of democratic and federal principles into policy of the Government in Burma; and (2) increased engagement of citizens and civil society, including women’s groups, in the transition to federal democracy in Burma.

Results achieved as of the end of the project (June 2019) include: (1) 2,802 key political stakeholders (of which 36% were women) were trained to better understand federal governance issues relevant to their country; (2) 11,372 participants (of which 3,549 (31%) were women) were trained in 240 trainings, in 240 townships across the country; (3) the training provided contributed to increasing the understanding of participants of federalism and of the mechanisms that can help to strengthen women’s participation in a federal system and in public decision-making; (4) 70% of trained beneficiaries demonstrated the capacity to deliver township trainings on federalism; and (5) eight of every ten beneficiaries spoke of a 50% improvement in their understanding on themes and issues related to GE and federalism, such as human rights, unity and diversity, peacebuilding, distribution of powers, local government, fiscal federalism and gender budgeting. This project interacted with 51 intermediaries and 17,580 direct beneficiaries (of which 5,740 (33%) were women) in total.

• Proactive disclosure