Assessing the impacts of COVID-19 on Myanmar’s economy: A Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) multiplier approach


Book Description

The measures taken by the Government of Myanmar to contain the transmission of COVID-19 are a necessary and appropriate response. In-depth analysis of measures of this magnitude on firms, households, government, and the economy as a whole is key to the design of policy interventions that can mitigate the economic losses and support a sustained and robust recovery. The economic losses to Myanmar’s economy in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic will be huge – a drop in production on the order of between 6.4 and 9.0 trillion Kyat – and likely will push the economy into a recession or lead to stagnant growth, at best, for the year. Although lockdown policies provide exemptions for most agricultural activities, linkages to other sectors indirectly affect the agri-food sector significantly. The agricultural sector is expected to contract by between 1.1 and 2.4 percent in 2020, and recovery will be slow. Closure of factories will have a large negative economic impact due to the strong linkage effects between manufacturing and upstream primary agriculture and downstream marketing services. Reopening the manufacturing sector is crucial for economic recovery in Myanmar.










Assessing the impacts of COVID-19 on household incomes and poverty in Myanmar: A microsimulation approach


Book Description

With policy measures imposed by governments around the world to contain and prevent the spread of COVID 19, global and domestic economic activities and trade flows have been interrupted. The unexpected shocks of COVID 19 negatively affect not only Myanmar’s economy, but also the livelihoods of Myanmar households. This Working Paper assesses such impacts at the household level using a microsimulation model based on the Myanmar Poverty and Living Conditions Survey (MPLCS) conducted in 2015.




Impacts of COVID-19 on Myanmar’s poultry sector: Implications for achieving the sustainable development goals


Book Description

This paper analyzes the impact of COVID-19 on two types of poultry production systems, broilers and layers, in Myanmar using five waves of telephone surveys from June to August 2020. The surveys were implemented with 269 poultry farms previously surveyed in 2019. The slow supply response of layer farms to increased egg demand after the initial COVID-19 shocks has resulted in higher egg prices for consumers. This, in turn, has affected nutritional intake, making it more difficult for Myanmar to achieve the second Sustainable Development Goal of ending hunger and malnutrition by 2030. Within both broiler and layer production systems are found both integrated poultry and fish farms and pure poultry farms. For layer farms, integration of poultry production with fish has provided a buffer against risk; the bankruptcy rate among integrated layer-fish farms was much lower than among pure layer farms. However, such advantages of integration of poultry with fish production are not seen for broiler farms.




Community perceptions of the social and economic impacts of COVID-19 in Myanmar: Insights from a National COVID-19 Community Survey (NCCS) - June and July 2020


Book Description

Myanmar has been fortunate in thus far having one of the lowest caseloads of COVID-19 per population globally, with under 400 confirmed cases as of early August. However, as a developing economy still beset by high rates of poverty and vulnerability, Myanmar is highly susceptible to the economic and social disruptions stemming from COVID-19. These disruptions began with the closure of the Chinese border and the cessation of agricultural exports in late January, followed in February and March by further disruptions to trade, tourism, manufacturing, and remittances. However, an economic simulation analysis by Diao et al. (2020) suggests that the most severe economic impacts of COVID-19 stemmed from the temporary lockdown policies imposed in late March, which – though necessary to prevent the further spread of the virus – led to significant disruptions throughout the economy, including the agri-food sector and the rural economy. Phone survey evidence on agricultural and industrial value chains demonstrates that economic disruptions related to COVID-19 are pervasive and significant (Fang et al, 2020; Goeb, Boughton, and Maredia 2020; Goeb et al. 2020, Takeshima, Win, and Masias 2020a, 2020b). In aggregate, economic simulations predict a modest contraction in Myanmar’s gross domestic product in 2020 (compared to rapid growth forecasted in the absence of COVID-19), but a more significant reduction in household incomes at around 12 percent on average.




Coronasphere


Book Description

This book presents a broad overview of the challenges posed by COVID-19 in India and its neighboring countries. It studies the differing responses to COVID-19 infections across South Asia, the variegated impact of the pandemic on its societies, communities and economies, and emerging challenges which require an interdisciplinary understanding and analysis. With a range of case studies from India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, and Sri Lanka, this book, Analyses the socio-economic impact of the pandemic, including the structural challenges faced by farmers in the agricultural production and migrant workers in the informal sectors; Examines the shifting trends in migration and displacement during the pandemic; Explores the precarity faced by LGBTQ+, transgender, Dalit, tribal, senior citizens, and other marginalized communities during the pandemic; Discusses the gendered impact of the pandemic on women and girls, combining with multiple and intersecting inequalities like race, ethnicity, socio-economic status, age, geographical location, and sexual orientation; Sheds light on the position of health infrastructure and healthcare services across different countries, and the transitions experienced in their education sectors as well, in response to COVID-19. A holistic read on the pandemic, this book will be of interest to scholars and researchers of sociology, medical anthropology, sociology of health, pandemic and health studies, political studies, social anthropology, public policy, and South Asian studies.




Poverty, food insecurity, and social protection during COVID-19 in Myanmar: Combined evidence from a household telephone survey and micro-simulations


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.




The impacts of the COVID-19 crisis on maternal and child malnutrition in Myanmar: What to expect, and how to protect


Book Description

The COVID-19 crisis in Myanmar poses a very serious risk to the nutritional status of vulnerable populations, notably women and children, as well as poor urban populations and internally displaced persons. The COVID-19 crisis will hit vulnerable groups through multiple mechanisms.




Myanmar's poverty and food insecurity crisis: Support to agriculture and food assistance is urgently needed to preserve a foundation for recovery


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.