THE government and the United Nations last week pledged to cooperate in providing development assistance to border areas in Myanmar, as the UN called for a significant increase in funding from international donors to help boost its aid efforts in the country.

“We have consistently welcomed the UN’s programs on humanitarian assistance and supported social development efforts in border areas implemented both directly by the UN agencies as well as in partnership with international and local NGOs,” deputy foreign minister U Kyaw Thu told a seminar held in Yangon on July 30 to coordinate government and UN aid activities in border regions.

“One priority objective of … Myanmar, while carrying out the democratisation process, is to strive for the development of the far-flung border areas where many of our brethren reside,” U Kyaw Thu told the seminar, which was jointly organised by the Myanmar Institute of Strategic and International Studies under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the UN country team in Myanmar.

U Kyaw Thu called on aid agencies operating in border areas to work to achieve the trust of local communities.

“In order to build trust with local authorities, we are of the view that we also need to assist them in achieving tangible results in their economic and social development endeavours for their regions.

“In this way, local communities and authorities will understand that measures taken by the government and the UN agencies have indeed aimed at securing long-term development and security in their regions,” U Kyaw Thu said.

Mr Charles Petrie, the United Nations humanitarian coordinator in Myanmar, told The Myanmar Times on August 1 the UN conducts extensive aid operations in border areas, where it seeks to implement longer-term economic development programs.

He said various UN agencies have been involved in providing healthcare, education assistance programs and livelihoods for vulnerable communities in border regions in Rakhine, Chin and Kachin states and some parts of Shan, Kayah and Kayin states.

“There is a very clear need in terms of health coverage (in border areas) and throughout the country. And more so in border areas, there is a need to support sustainable education – education for children to actually have a future,” Mr Petrie said.

Mr Petrie, who jointly chaired the seminar, said the meeting provided an opportunity for the UN and government to have an open, frank and informal discussion on how the UN provides humanitarian assistance.

“There was consensus among all of us that there is a need to provide support to vulnerable communities. So it is a question of how to do it in a way that we retain the integrity of our work while the concerns of other groups are taken into account,” he said.

He said one of the UN’s most important aid programs was helping to provide alternative incomes to former opium farmers, mainly in Shan State.

A June report by the UN Office of Drugs and Crime said more than 300,000 people from 66,000 families, mostly in Shan State, had stopped growing opium in 2006.

“That is one of the critical issues. It is very complicated and critical to try to find alternative livelihoods (for former opium farmers), otherwise we will see a very serious humanitarian challenge,” Mr Petrie said.

“The challenge right now is to transition from the UNODC-led response, which is on drug eradication, towards a UN-system-wide sustainable response to look more at local economic incentives and providing microfinance, and to look at structural long-term support for these farmers in order to help them move out from opium production,” he said.

Mr Petrie said that while international assistance to support the work of the UN and other aid agencies was generally low, there was a growing recognition of the need to increase funding.

“Humanitarian funding generally is fairly low. The more we can reach an understanding with the government of Myanmar on how to operate and the importance of operating, the greater will be the chance that we will actually be able to attract donors to support these humanitarian interventions,” Mr Petrie said.