March Quarterly Donor Update
Myanmar
On the anniversary of the 1st February coup in Myanmar, the military junta is now responsible for the deaths of more than 1,500 people and the arbitrary arrest of over 11,000 civilians. Violence continues to intensify through aerial bombardments and razing of villages, leaving 320,900 internally displaced across Myanmar since the 1st February 2021, an increase of 100,000 displaced in the last three months.
Crisis Action’s Emergency Response campaign has remained focused on an end to hostilities through international isolation of the junta, while pushing for an effective humanitarian response.
Fostering collaborations between NGOs and states in a bid to push for UN Security Council action on Myanmar
In January, Norway which was the President for the Month, failed to secure an open briefing on Myanmar despite significant NGO effort coordinated by Crisis Action. However, a significant outcome from these efforts was the development of strong partnerships and connections among a cross-section of national and international human rights and humanitarian partners and missions of key UN Member states. In efforts to secure the briefing, Crisis Action worked closely with champions Norway and Ireland to identify how civil society organisations (CSOs) could support and:
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- Organised a global partner call on 18th January to agree on public and private outreach.
- Drafted a joint statement calling for the open briefing “at an absolute minimum”, helping secure 286 Burmese and international CSO signatories, including ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Parliamentarians for Human Rights, Amnesty International, the Burma Campaign, the International Confederation of Trade Unions and Save the Children among others.
- Coordinated partner efforts to circulate the statement to all UN Security Council member states (also shared by Norway to all).
- Developed a social media toolkit which enabled partners to share the statement with an engaged global audience of over 1.5 million people.
- Identified activist Wai Wai Nu as an appropriate civil society representative to brief the Security Council.
Convened partner calls with key UN Missions including India and the US.
Unfortunately, Norway could only secure eight of the nine votes required for an open briefing. Crisis Action and partners had not been able to reach Gabon, Ghana and Brazil, who had joined the Council earlier that month and did not support the call.