There is a new report by the US Center for Strategic and International Studies. You can download and read it at http://csis.org/files/publication/141019_Morrison_Myanmar_Web.pdf.
It says "Myanmar citizens have begun at long last to see important gains in HIV/AIDS prevention". In fact most of the gains in HIV prevention began ten years ago and occurred before reforms. Figure 7 in the Global AIDS Response Progress Report Myanmar https://tinyurl.com/kcta3qm
And then the press report from Devex below says that HIV is severely underreported in Myanmar. Is this true?
Jamie
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US flexes diplomatic muscle in Myanmar
Molly Anders
Devex
23 October 2014
As donor darling Myanmar gets ready to hold general elections in late 2015, the United States is increasing its diplomatic presence in the former military state — with the U.S. Agency for International Development as one of the main arms.
“USAID doesn’t have a traditional development agenda in [Myanmar],” Jason Foley, deputy assistant administrator at the the agency’s Asian bureau, said Wednesday in an event hosted by the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“Beginning in 2015, we are broadening our diplomatic engagement to focus on three key areas: the elections, the peace process and Rakhine state,” he added.
Formerly known as Arakan, Rakhine is home to the Rohingya, a Muslim ethnic minority which the country’s Buddhist rulers refuse to grant full rights. Religious violence between both sides have left about 250 dead and an estimated 150,000 homeless since 2012.
International aid organizations have struggled to work there because of severe government restrictions on access to the refugees camps. For instance, French medical group Médecins Sans Frontières only recently decided to resume operations after pulling out a few months ago.
Foley detailed that USAID provided in fiscal year 2013 up to $45 million to support internally displaced persons and highlighted the agency will conduct this year the country’s first-ever national demographic survey.
The survey, he explained, hopes to provide a more accurate picture of displaced populations and help track diseases like HIV, malaria and tuberculosis — all severely underreported in Myanmar.
https://www.devex.com/news/us-flexes-diplomatic-muscle-in-myanmar-84618
