Progress, Setbacks, and Uncertainty

Abstract

This poverty synthesis notes documents Myanmar’s poverty reduction progress leading to the COVID-19 crisis, and setback to these gains brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic and coup. The note aims to extract lessons from the Myanmar Poverty Assessment and the World Bank High-Frequency Phone Surveys. Analysis of welfare trends and drivers of poverty changes draws from the Poverty Assessment and covers the period 2005–2017, in line with existing national household surveys. Analysis of COVID-19 and 2021 military coup effects relies on the World Bank High-Frequency Phone Surveys (HFPS) conducted between March 2020 and February 2022. Starting May 2020, seven rounds of the phone survey data have been collected, each with national coverage consisting of a sample of 1,500 households, with the exception of the sixth round. Six survey cover the period May 2020–January 2021 during the pandemic and prior to the military coup, and one covers February 2022, one year after the military takeover on 1 February 2021. Annex one and Annex two provides more details of the survey implementation and respondent profile.