Is poverty in Myanmar on the rise? Poverty predictions from Google mobility data PDF Download

Author: Myanmar Agriculture Policy Support Activity (MAPSA)
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 8

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Book Description
The severe economic impacts of COVID-19 on Myanmar’s economy have been accentuated by the recent political instability. In this note, we present the most recent evidence on changes in Google consumer mobility data, since these are leading indicators of changes in household income, and use a previous econometric model linking mobility indices to survey-based household poverty to predict what may be happening to poverty in Myanmar in 2021.

Author: Headey, Derek D.
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 13

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Book Description
This study assesses the welfare impacts of COVID-19 on households in Myanmar by combining recent high-frequency telephone survey evidence for two specific rural and urban geographies with national-level survey-based simulations designed to assess ex-ante impacts on poverty with differing amounts of targeted cash transfers. The first source of evidence – the COVID-19 Rural and Urban Food Security Survey (C19- RUFSS) – consists of four rounds of monthly data collected from a sample of over 2,000 households, all with young children or pregnant mothers, divided evenly between urban and peri-urban Yangon and the rural Dry Zone. This survey sheds light on household incomes prior to COVID-19 (January 2020), incomes and food security status soon after the first COVID-19 wave (June 2020), the gradual economic recovery thereafter (July and August 2020), and the start of the second COVID-19 wave in September and October 2020. This survey gives timely and high-quality evidence on the recent welfare impacts of COVID-19 for two important geographies and for households that are nutritionally highly vulnerable to shocks due to the presence of very young children or pregnant mothers. However, the relatively narrow geographic and demographic focus of this telephone survey and the need for forecasting the poverty impacts of COVID-19 into 2021 prompt us to explore simulationbased evidence derived by applying parameter shocks to household models developed from nationally representative household survey data collected prior to COVID-19, the 2015 Myanmar Poverty and Living Conditions Survey (MPLCS). By realistically simulating the kinds of disruptions imposed on Myanmar’s economy by both international forces, e.g., lower agricultural exports and workers’ remittances, and domestic COVID-19 prevention measures. e.g., stay-at-home orders and temporary business closures, we not only can predict the impacts of COVID-19 on household poverty at the rural, urban, and national levels, but also can assess the further benefits to household welfare of social protection in the form of monthly household cash transfers of different magnitudes. Combined, these two sources of evidence yield insights on both the on-the-ground impacts of COVID-19 in recent months and the potential poverty reduction impacts of social protection measures in the coming year. We conclude the study with a discussion of the policy implications of these findings.

Author: Myanmar Agriculture Policy Support Activity (MAPSA)
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 28

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Book Description
Myanmar experienced four distinct COVID shocks to its economy over 2020 to early 2022 as well as a military takeover in February 2021 that created severe political, civil and economic turmoil. COVID and the coup d’état reversed a decade of growth and poverty reduction, but the full extent of the crisis on household poverty has remained uncertain because of the challenges of conducting large-scale in-person welfare surveys during the pandemic and recent political instability. Here we combine ex ante simulation models with diverse phone survey evidence from mid-2020 to early 2022 to estimate the poverty impacts of these shocks and some of the mechanisms behind them. Both simulations and surveys are consistent in painting a grim picture of rising poverty, capital-depleting coping mechanisms, and the complete collapse of government-provided social protection.

Author: Myanmar Agriculture Policy Support Activity (MAPSA)
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 19

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Book Description
National poverty rates in Myanmar have risen dramatically due to economic disruption following the February 1, 2021 military take-over of government. Depending on assumptions about the scale of the economic impacts, household poverty rates are predicted to have risen to between 40 and 50 percent in 2021, compared to 32 percent in 2015 and just under 25 percent in 2017. Between 849,000 and 1.87 million new households are thus living in poverty in 2021 in addition to the estimated 2.86 million households already in poverty in 2015. The poverty impacts of these disruptions are significant not only in the sharp increases in the total number of households in poverty, but also in the substantial deepening of poverty for households that were already poor. By the end of the current financial year, the average poverty gap (expenditure shortfall) is predicted to have increased from 26 percent in 2015 to between 34 and 40 percent for individuals living in poor households.

Author: Headey, Derek D.
Publisher: Intl Food Policy Res Inst
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 17

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Book Description
Amid extreme uncertainty during the COVID-19 pandemic, economic policymakers have struggled to respond to rapidly changing circumstances with appropriate speed and scale. One policy obstacle is the dearth of real-time indicators of the pandemic’s economic impacts, especially in low and middle income countries (LMICs). Here we show that an ‘immobility’ indicator from GoogleTM – measuring the extent to which consumers are staying at home more – is a powerful predictor of changes in household poverty in Myanmar, as well as aggregate national consumption and gross domestic product (GDP) in cross-country data. Combined, this evidence suggests that real-time mobility indicators have the potential to inform a wide range of policy deliberations, including forecasting models, fine-tuning the timing of both economic stimulus and social protection interventions, and tracking economic recovery from this unprecedented crisis.

Author: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Publisher: Food & Agriculture Org.
ISBN: 925131411X
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 325

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Book Description
This illustrated volume identifies the challenges and opportunities facing food and agriculture in the context of the 2030 Agenda, presents solutions for a more sustainable world and shows how FAO has been working in recent years to support its Member Nations in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.

Author: Hyun-Joo Lim
Publisher: Policy Press
ISBN: 1529215455
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 108

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Book Description
Recent North Korean diaspora has given rise to female refugee groups fighting for the protection of women’s rights. Presenting in-depth accounts of North Korean women defectors living in the UK, this book examines how their harrowing experiences have become an impetus for their activism. The author also reveals how their utopian dream of a better future for fellow North Korean women is vital in their activism. Unique in its focus on the intersections between gender, politics, activism and mobility, Lim's illuminating work will inform debates on activism and human rights internationally.