Managing Myanmar's Resource Boom to Lock in Reforms
Publisher: Peterson Institute for International Economics
Author(s): Cullen S. Hendrix, Marcus Noland
Date: 2014
Myanmar is in the midst of a multifaceted transition, involving political reform, economic reform, and the resolution of multiple long-standing civil conflicts. The country has a history of ethnoreligious conflict and separatism, civil-military relations are muddy, and business-military-state relations are similarly opaque. An ongoing resource boom, and the blessings and curses that come with it, further complicate these developments. Given the country’s evident institutional weaknesses, external policy anchors could play a critical role in this transition. This Policy Brief addresses the possible role for such precommitment mechanisms—in particular, the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI)—in Myanmar’s growing extractive sector.