Gender Responsive Budgeting

Ministry of EDUCATION ( MYANMAR)

Budget allowance-$1100

 

 

 

Group Member: 

1.  Aye Chan Myae 
2. Jiang Cong Cong
3. Le Nguyen Lan Chi
4. Nikita Shakya
5. Kullanan Sukwanchai

Infracture ( Road)

Gender Impacts and solutions of infracture( road constructure)

 

 

Group Member: 

1.  Aye Chan Myae  (st116970)
2. Le Nguyen Lan Chi (st116497)
3. Nikita Shakya (st116512)
4. Ying Lwin ( st116510) 

Poverty

Poverty in Vietnam - Definition, Indicator and Solutions

Definition:  According to our group’s discussion, poverty in Vietnam is a situation in which people do not enjoy the basic human needs in education, healthcare services and nutrition.

Causes of poverty in Vietnam:

• Lack of development in physical infrastructure and public service in the majority of the poor live in rural, isolated, mountainous or disaster prone areas
• Limited access to credit
• Limited education
• Rural households consisting of only women and children are particularly vulnerable to poverty because the number of dependents is relatively high compared with the available labor force. ("Vietnam Poverty Analysis". Australian Government. May 9, 2002. Retrieved March 6, 2012.)

Based on our definition about poverty, our group measures the poverty in Vietnam with Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) by analyzing in three fields (Health, Education and Living Standard) combining with gender perspective.

In Vietnam, the more vulnerable group of poverty is women group. Data from the World Bank (2013) has shown that the percentage of women who completed the secondary education is 59.4 %, in contract male percentage is 71.2%. Moreover, the share of number of women as the Member of Parliament is only 24.4% (term 2011-2016). The maternal motility rate is only 59% in 2013.  Thus, our group searches the following possible solutions to reduce poverty and enhance women lives.

Solutions:

1. Providing micro credit directly to women
1. Micro credit is one of the possible solutions because women can get extra income from it and they can get more opportunities to connect with others as a result.
2. Capacity building ( training, awareness raising, etc.) for  women
1. Women can get more skills, become more self-confidence, and get more knowledge from different type of training.
3. Providing infrastructure and public service (especially for women)
1. For instant, government policy should be target to gender equity in education sector. It should be defined equal percentage of male and female can access free education for labor force because the number of female population in Vietnam is more than male. 

To reduce poverty in Vietnam, in sum, Government should implement the current program successfully plus it should focus on the gender equity, women empowerment and women participation in decision making level because women are also human resource which can be used in the poverty reduction.

Group Member: 

1.  Aye Chan Myae  (st116970)
2.  Nikita Shakya (st116512)
3. Le Nguyen Lan Chi (st116497)
4. Ying Lwin ( st116510) 

  

 

 

 

 

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Critical Reflection #2

 

Microfinance leading to poverty reduction

The most interesting thing I realized this week is what the effective solution of poverty reduction be microfinance. Who the poor is a person earns $1.25 per day which is the poverty line. More than 20 percent of the world populations are under poverty line (The World Bank 2008). Thus, it is attempted to reduce poverty by various ways because of various definitions and measurements. To reduce poverty, the most effective way is microfinance because the simplest reason why they are poor is lack of investment in informal works.

This realization is important for pulling the poor above the poverty line themselves with the various reasons. First, microfinance can increase income from self-employment because it is one of the loans for income generation activities leading to increase job opportunities which in turn increase demand for children, health, education and leisure. Third, microfinance can provide consumption smoothing which can make the poor better withstand economic shocks such as natural disasters, health care costs. Finally, it can empower women due to giving a chance to participate women. Nowadays, 50% of the world population is contributed by women but they earn only 10% if wages due to discrimination. That is why women can increase social power if they can access to credit because they are remain in unpaid work and have greater burden in household. Thus, in Bangladesh, the annual household consumption expenditure increases by women than men.

This concept make me realise that microfinance can provide the poor not only to increase income and also to improve empowerment of the poor women. It can lift up the level of poor leading to poverty reduction. Yunus (1994), claims, “If we are looking for one single action which will enable the poor to overcome their poverty, I would go for credit. Money is power.” By proving the credit to poor, it can improve the skills, the quality and quantity of the product, and increase income of the poor. As a result, the poor can invest in human resource such as education, improve the standard of livings and wellbeing. In Pakastan, the rural small farmers increase 15%-20% of the income from the dairy farming due to the microfinance.

Moreover, it leads to empowerment of women which is one of the main points to reduce poverty because women are critical person in household because they have to manage the income and expenditure for the survival of the family. However, the most of the poor are rural women who access lower education, lower job opportunities, lower wages and lower public services than men due to male dominated system. Thus, women can access income generation activities such as bakery, increase social network, and participate in community development leading to increasing self-confidence resulting to reduce poverty due to microfinance.

This concept will be useful in my future career in my country. As we know, Myanmar, my country, is still one of the poorest countries all over the world. It is starting to fight poverty by developing policy and laws. At present, it has a microfinance program as a pilot with the aid of the World Bank in some area not covering the whole country but it is still gender blind. As my interesting is gender and development and improving the role of women is my dream as well, thus, I will point out the empowering women resulting from microfinance program leading to poverty reduction because gender perspective is also important to reduce poverty when I will be in the development field at the time after my degree.

 

Reference:

Guy Vincent, “Sustainable Microentrepreneurship: The Roles of Microfinance, Entrepreneurship and Sustainability in Reducing Poverty in Developing Countries” http://www.gdrc.org/icm/micro/guy_sust-micro.pdf

Kirsten Leikem, "Microfinance: A Tool for Poverty Reduction?"(2012). Senior Honors Projects. Paper 300.

http://digitalcommons.uri.edu/srhonorsprog/300

Shahidur R.Khanker. “Microfinance and Poverty” 2013, Evidence Using Panel Data from Bangladesh.The World Bank

http://www-wds.worldbank.org/servlet/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2003/02/15/000094946_03013104041165/Rendered/PDF/multi0page.pdf

Family Budget Planning

Family Budget Planning In Myanmar

Family Structure  - 8 members ( 2 grandparents, 2 parents, and 4 children)
Target area         - rural area in Myanmar
Family income     - medium

 

Group Member: 

1.  Aye Chan Myae  (st116970)
2. Dwight Jason Magro Ronan (st116561) 
3. Le Nguyen Lan Chi (st116497)
4. Ying Lwin ( st116510) 

 



Critical Reflective Writing # 1

Cultural Norms, Gender and Economic Development in Myanmar

            The most interesting thing I learned in this week is that cultural norms can influence gender and economic development. Due to culture, women have to perform reproductive works such as caring children and older, preparing food, managing finance for the survival of family member, etc. as their responsibilities. Otherwise, they do not have much time to participate in business and community activities leading to less economic development in Myanmar because of less women participation in decision making and economic development activities.

            This realization is important for three reasons. First, cultural norms can cause higher female illiteracy rate which is the major issue for development. Due to saying: When a daughter is born parents' usually say, “assurance of an additional dish on the dining table”, parents do not prefer women to enroll school  than men. Thus, according to the Provisional results of the 2014 census, 51.8% (26,598,244) of the total population  is female but  only 86.4% of  female can enjoy the education (primary) which  is lower than male (96.9%). Second, it leads to gender gap in higher position professional jobs, for instant; there is male preference in joining the professional institute like University of Medicine etc. than female by big difference matriculation exam marks. Finally, it restricts women to take the decision making role because of patriarchy system .So, only 6% of 664 seats in both houses is women Member of Parliament.

             This concept makes me realise that cultural norms can influence on gender and economic development. In one decade, Myanmar’s government is trying to improve economic development but it is still poorer than neighboring countries due to the mismanagement based on the cultural norms leading to gender discrimination. The reason why economic development is failure is the restriction of women in decision making role and implementing economic development activities because the percentage of labour force of female (49.81%) is more than male and they have  skill to manage and plan how money can use effectively since they were born.

   This concept will be useful in my future career in my country. It can be informed to government through consultation to take into account in economic development plans because not only formal and informal institution and also gender are necessary needed for economic development in Myanmar.

 

 

Reference:

1.       Brenda Belak. (2002). The Economy and Women’s Labour (Pg.152-193). Images Asia Publisher.

  http://www.ibiblio.org/obl/docs/GS11.economy-and-labour.pdf

 

2.       Department of Population, Ministry of Immigration and Population (2014). Myanmar Population and Housing Census, Provisional Results: Census Report Volume 1 http://countryoffice.unfpa.org/myanmar/drive/Census_Provisional_Results_2014_ENG.pdf

 

 

 

Economic Analysis ( Cambodia Vs Nepal )

Economic Analysis

 

By comparing two countries ( Cambodia and Nepal) in GDP, GDP growth and GDP per Capita

CAMBODIA – NEPAL

 

Group income: low income

Chart 1 clearly shows that GDP of Nepal is greater than that of Cambodia. From 2010 to 2013, GDP has increasing year by year in these two countries. GPD of Cambodia increased in even pace, while GDP of Nepal increased unevenly. In 2010, GDP of Nepal was $15,994 billion and in 2013 it reached $18,850 billion, however, from 2011 to 2013, it increased with a low pace.

Although GDP of Nepal is greater than that of Cambodia, GDP growth of Nepal is much lower than that of Cambodia. Cambodia was severely hit by the 2008 economic crisis, recovery in 2010 was driven by tourism and clothing exports (producing about a third of GDP), supported by a good year in agriculture. Therefore, its GDP grew consistently. In Nepal, because of the global economic slowdown and a difficult and protracted post-conflict political transition, Nepal’s economic growth has not been stable. In 2012, the GDP growth rate was 4.9%, the highest achieved during the 2010-2012 period covered by the previous country partnership strategy. However, because the tense situation between the main political parties and the failure in drafting a new constitution of successive governing coalitions, the interim government was not formed until March 2013.That had a negative effect on the GDP, it decreased from 4.9% in 2012 to 3.8% in 2013.

Chart 3 shows that Cambodia has greater GDP per capita than Nepal. Per capital income of Cambodia rapidly increased from 2010 to 2013, from $782 to $1006. Nepal is heavily dependent on remittances, which amount to as much as 22-25% of GDP. Like the GDP growth, GDP per capita in Nepal reached $699, the highest point from 2010 to 2013, and decreased to $694 in 2013.

Analysis two countries with one Human Development related Indicator
 

( EDUCATION )





 



Education sector analysis

 

Education sector analysis after analyzing three economic indicators ( GDP, GDP growth and GDP per capita ) between two low income countries, our group continues to investigate how many percentage of GDP that the governments spend on educational sectors. Surprisingly, both countries spend under 5% of GDP for education in 2010. The Cambodian government used 2.6% and the Nepalese government used 7% respectively. Therefore, there are huge numbers of children out of school even in primary level. Table 1 indicates that in Cambodian, there are 18,350 school girls dropped from basic education in 2010 and 25,697 in 2012. It is estimated that there were more than 7000 school girls stopping from their education from 2010 and 2012. However, in Nepal there were more girls out of school 59,945 in 2011 and 44,041 in 2012. While the girls out of school rate increase in Cambodia, whereas in Nepal, girls out of school rate decrease around 26%.

When looking at boys out of school in Cambodia there are around 27% in 2010 and 89% in 2012 less than school girls drop out school but in Nepal, school boys stop their education is only 7% lower in 2011 and 15% lower in 2012. Therefore, the data clearly show that both the number of Cambodian and Nepal school girls dropping out primary school rate in higher than that of school boys.

In short, from 2010-2013, both Cambodia and Nepal had increasing in GDP, GDP growth and GDP per capita, thought it was still modest, however, it did not mean that their education sector also improved. Through our analysis about the economic growth’s indicator (GDP, GDP growth and GDP per capita) and economic development’s indicator (human development-education sector), we have more insight into the differences between the economic growth and economic development.

Group Members

1.     Aye Chan Myae  (st116970)

2.     Le Nguyen Lan Chi (st116497)

3.     Nikita Shakya (st116512)

4.     Ying Lwin ( st116510)

Group Work

Concept of Economic Development and Economic Growth ( Clay Work)
( 18.6.2015, Morning Session)

Economic Development means increase living standard, improvement in self-esteem needs and freedom for oppression greater job of the inhabitants of a country.






Economic Growth means increase value of goods and services produced by every sector of economics. It is measured by only GDP.




Group Members:
Aye Chan Myae ( st 116970)
Naw Apri Hpaw ( st 116127)
Yin Min Aye      ( st 117080)

Profile

Hello everyone,
I am Miss Aye Chan Myae.
I am studying Gender and Development field at Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), Bangkok, Thailand.
I am from Myanmar ( the Golden Land).
I got the bachelor degree (B.Sc. Forestry) from University of Forestry , Yezin.