Social Protection and Public Financial Management (SP&PFM) project in Myanmar

The COVID-19 pandemic has reinforced the urgency of developing more resilient and adaptable social protection systems. In response to the health emergency, unemployment, and increasing poverty caused by the pandemic, countries around the globe are working to scale up and strengthen further their systems.

The SP&PFM project in Myanmar, entitled “Building a sustainable social protection response to the COVID-19 crisis in Myanmar,” was launched in October 2020 to support Myanmar in responding efficiently to the current health and job crisis with a view that putting in place the new system could as well help Myanmar to cope better with future crises.

The primary purpose of this project is to protect targeted workers and households from falling further into poverty particularly in times of crisis as well as supporting economic recovery through strengthening human capital. As COVID 19 is a global problem, the size and type of problems alert the world to revisit their social protection system to ensure that the system function sufficiently well to support the people in this difficult time. As such, this project is being implemented in Myanmar as part of a larger global social protection programme, “Improving Synergies between Social Protection and Public Finance Management (SP&PFM)”, which is funded by the European Union (EU).

Objectives

The key immediate objectives defined in this project are,
  1. Improving the immediate financing of the contributory social protection system to improve sustainability of the system using available comprehensive data set to formulate policy advice paper for future engagement at national level, as and when possible.
  2. Supporting social partners with necessary technical information / knowledge on unemployment insurance so to prepare them to participate in the future designing and preparing for the implementation of an Unemployment Insurance Fund to respond effectively and efficiently to future crises and their impacts

Project Activities

The SP&PFM-Myanmar project is expected to deliver results in several complementary areas, by supporting the development of more robust financing of the social security system, setting the foundations for an unemployment insurance scheme, transferring knowledge, and building national capacity and strengthening dialogue with relevant stakeholders towards policy development. Thus, through this project, the ILO will deliver the following technical assistances:
  • Actuarial and Financial analysis, technical support and knowledge transfer on policy options, design, financing and fund management to ILO social partners
  • Design and costing technical services for the Unemployment Fund Computation.
  • Capacity building for social partners to ensure their understanding and possible contributory roles in enhancing system resilience and responsiveness
  • Supporting social dialogue and inclusion of all stakeholders throughout the process

Partner Project

The activities implemented through the project are further complemented by the Japan government-funded “Bolstering Unemployment Insurance and Labour Market Policy Development in Myanmar (BUILD)” project, which also focuses on strengthening the linkages between unemployment insurance and the existing Active Labour Market Policies (ALMP) measures in Myanmar. For further information about this project, please see here.

To learn more about this SP&PFM-Myanmar project, please contact:

  • Mr Simon Brimblecombe, ILO Senior Actuary, brimblecombe@ilo.org
  • Mr Ippei Tsuruga, ILO focal point on unemployment insurance, tsuruga@ilo.org
  • Mr Saw U Ler Moo, National Project Coordinator, moo@ilo.org