In conflict-affected countries, climate related development aid may inadvertently heighten tensions and further marginalize ethnic minority groups, according to new research from NMBU.
In her doctoral research, NMBU’s Marianne Mosberg reports on how climate change adaptation initiatives in Myanmar often have failed to recognize that they have political implications.
“The way these measures are implemented can create winners and losers. They can lead to exclusionary decision-making processes, create shifts in the power balance and reinforce underlying grievances and conflict patterns”, says Mosberg.
Focusing on the 2010s, Mosberg investigated climate policies and adaptation measures implemented in the southeastern regions of Myanmar, mainly the Karen state and the Tanintharyi region. In these areas, insurgent groups like the Karen National Union (KNU) have been involved in a long-running civil war with the Myanmar military.
Unintended outcomes
In Myanmar (previously Burma), internal conflict has plagued the country since 1948, when the country gained its independence from the British. Ethnic minority groups, like the Karen people, have since then been fighting for self-determination and more autonomy.
Climate change effects have further intensified the insecurity and challenges that people experience due to these conflicts. The country has seen an increase in extreme weather events, like cyclones and strong winds, floods and intense rain, unusually high temperatures and drought.
“Myanmar is one of the countries most vulnerable to the effects of climate change”, stated Aung San Suu Kyi in 2020, when she was still the head of state in Myanmar. Through her research and fieldwork, Mosberg could indeed confirm the severe impacts of climate change on the population.
“The consequences for human lives and livelihoods are far-reaching and concerning and includes detrimental effects on health and food security”, says Mosberg. In 2018-2019 she travelled around southeastern Myanmar, to interview villagers about their experiences with climate change, conflict, and changes in the societal structures.
In the 2010s, Myanmar saw a “semi-democratic” period: Political reforms were initiated by the military junta, and a ceasefire between the government and KNU was agreed upon. Aid organizations, including the United Nations, saw a window of opportunity for launching various initiatives in the country, aiming to protect biodiversity and conserve nature, as well as alleviate the effects of climate change. Several nations were also engaging with the Myanmar authorities in this period, Norway being one of them.
At first glance, projects aiming to limit the effects of climate change and biodiversity loss should be straightforward and beneficial for both people and nature. However, Mosberg's research reveals a more complex reality: These initiatives have sometimes resulted in minority groups’ access to resources and political influence being curbed.
While this was an unintended outcome of development aid organizations’ efforts, it conveniently furthered the Myanmar governments interest in expanding their territorial control and authority in the country.
Avoiding sensitive issues
Myanmar’s semi-democratic period in the 2010s hardly felt like a time of peace for many of Myanmar’s citizens.
“In southeastern Myanmar, the ceasefire agreement was frequently breached, and armed conflicts continued to influence millions of people’s lives in the border regions of Myanmar”, says Mosberg.
Even when entering the more democratic period in the 2010s, the armed forces were still a powerful and autonomous actor in affairs of the state. The political climate was still ‘touchy’, where certain topics and areas were considered politically sensitive.
“Many development aid agencies and nations, when approaching the government, tended to avoid talking about human rights violations, ongoing conflicts, and ethnic or religious minorities. This ‘self-censorship’ was particularly evident in the process of developing climate-related policies and project proposals”, says Mosberg.
This contributed to a development of climate-related policies and projects that were “depoliticized”, formulated in a technical language, focusing more on economic and environmental factors, rather than on social and political issues.
“Some projects would have a huge impact on the lives and livelihoods of people in certain areas,” says Mosberg, “but they were still dressed up as technical decisions, with no political dimensions.”
For the good of nature …
One such example is the Ridge2Reef project, initiated by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The project aimed to establish and expand protected areas in the Tanintharyi region, including in KNU-controlled areas.
“Although the project was framed as a technical endeavor, backed by scientific knowledge about climate change and biodiversity, it would significantly alter how the local populations could access natural resources and practice traditional livelihoods in the area. It therefore had very real political implications”, Mosberg says.
While noting that plantations and industrial developments was leading to over-exploitation of natural resources in Tanintharyi region, the project placed particular blame for environmental degradation on returning refugees and portrayed indigenous people living in the area as ‘threats to the environment’.
When the project launched in 2018, local groups and the KNU complained to the UNDP and the project's funders. This led to an investigation and suspension. The investigation found the project didn't adhere by the terms of the ceasefire agreement, failed to include affected people, and failed to assess risks, especially for indigenous people.
“These communities have been exposed to conflict, violence and human rights abuses for years, and suddenly they were not only blamed for damaging the environment, but they also faced the risk of losing access to their livelihoods and land rights. This, of course, made many people concerned, and it angered the KNU, who was already dissatisfied with the ongoing peace process”, says Mosberg.
The same tactics where at play when several climate policies for Myanmar were developed throughout the 2010s.
«Again, the authorities framed this as being merely technical decisions, that had to be implemented, referring to UN- and IPCC-reports and the like,” says Mosberg. “There were also barriers in the bureaucracy preventing a transparent and inclusive process”.
Mosberg herself has worked for a UN agency in Yangon, Myanmar, in 2016 and 2017.
“I participated in consultations for some of these climate policies,” says Mosberg,” and found the lack of attention to the conflicts raging in large parts of the country troubling.”
Guidelines for socially just adaptation
«We make the same mistakes over and over again in development aid projects, we seem to never learn,” says Mosberg.
In her thesis she leverages insights from critical adaption research, a field of study on impacts of climate change adaption measures.
“Such top-down interventions that I’ve observed in Myanmar, usually excludes the knowledge and traditions of local communities, and keeps them out of any decision-processes. The results are far from optimal. Injustices are sustained. There is a tendency where the people in power often are the ones benefitting from these kinds of measures”, says Mosberg.
In her study of southeastern Myanmar, Mosberg identifies how past conflicts and military dictatorship have led to limited government services and opportunities, particularly in rural areas. She underscores how factors like gender, religion, and ethnicity affect people's ability to cope with impacts of climate change.
“In adaptation initiatives,” says Mosberg, “the sociopolitical causes of vulnerability, especially the legacies of conflict, must be taken into account when to addressing climate change.”
When implementing development aid, Mosberg would like to see more extensive use of specific guidelines by NGOs and countries like Norway.
“Several guidelines exist, for example on how to ensure ‘conflict sensitive aid’ in general, and ‘conflict sensitive adaptation’ in particular.”
Included in her thesis is also a set of guidelines developed by Mosberg, ‘Guiding questions for socially just adaptation policies and projects’.
“However, it is important that these guidelines do not become an exercise in ‘ticking boxes’ in aid implementation. Development practitioners should think critically about what they do, and how they do it.”
On February 1, 2021, the Myanmar military staged a coup d’état, unseating Aung San Suu Kyi and the rest of the democratically elected government. Since then, the country has been thrown into chaos, with violent conflict spreading across the country. Norway has suspended all bilateral aid to the military junta, but some NGOs are still active in the country, working under very restrictive and insecure conditions.
“In the current context in Myanmar, strategic depoliticization of climate initiatives can be a life-saving strategy that keeps aid workers out of harms way. However, it is important to recognize that climate change adaptation is a political process, and climate justice principles should always be placed at the center of these initiatives”, says Mosberg.