Challenges of Humanitarian Aid International Non-Government Organizations (INGOs) in Myanmar

In Myanmar, there are currently over 100 INGOs, and out of these, 43 are providing humanitarian aid and development activities in conjunction with eight UN organizations. However, whether humanitarian operations have positively or negatively impacted Myanmar is underreported. A backlash against INGOs arose in the wake of 2012, and suspicions about misappropriation of aid resources and mismanagement of funds seem to have become more controversial after the aid agencies jumped into the Rakhine crisis under the agenda of humanitarian violations. This research is based on a literature review, relevant case study analysis, and 10 semi-structured interviews with humanitarian activists of the Myanmar Diaspora in Canada. The primary objective of this research is to investigate how humanitarian aid INGOs contextualize their work in Myanmars post-democracy period and to see how said work links to the challenges associated with projects in the area of ethnic conflict. Based on the findings, a culturally appropriate framework is introduced for the efficacy of Myanmars humanitarian aid INGOs. In this study, I argue that humanitarian aid INGOs fail to apply outside-in thinking in the decision-making process when implementing aid projects in Myanmar, which is a developing country with multi-rooted conflicts.