The Feed the Future Myanmar Agriculture Policy Support Activity (MAPSA) is hosting a series of eight capacity strengthening modules designed to train Myanmar economists and policy analysts on current knowledge, evidence, and methods for the analysis of the Myanmar agri-food system. Through these modules, participants will learn new analytical and relevant economic methods using updated datasets for Myanmar and will benefit from expert insights on the functioning of the rural and agricultural economy. After this course, participants will have a comprehensive understanding of supply, demand, and markets of agricultural produce, gender issues, the non-farm economy, and investments required to achieve inclusive and sustainable growth in Myanmar. The capacity strengthening modules will be conducted virtually. Certificates of Completion from the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) will be given out for each completed module to highlight their enhanced knowledge in agri-food topics.
Module 2
This month, the second module of the Feed the Future MAPSA’s eight-module seminar series focused on migration and mechanization in Myanmar. Rural out-migration to both domestic and international destinations count among the key phenomena that defined a decade of transformation in Myanmar from the 2011 economic reforms until the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. This presentation highlighted the trends in migration and its contributions to economic growth and rural development. Myanmar’s extremely rapid agricultural mechanization took place during the period of political and economic reforms from 2011 to 2020. This presentation provided examples of policies on trade, finance, and land tenure that contributed to this transformation and provide updates on the impacts of COVID-19 and political instability on the sector from recent phone surveys conducted throughout Myanmar.
Presenters
Mateusz Filipski, Associate Professor, University of Georgia
Ben Belton, Associate Professor, Michigan State University
Hiro Takeshima, Senior Research Fellow, International Food Policy Research Institute