Th e government of Myanmar faces important decisions that will determine the future trajectory of governance
reform and condition long-run growth and poverty reduction. Since 2010, the pace of reform has
been nothing short of stunning, yet signifi cant challenges remain. While the agenda for continued reform
is extensive, we identify the following items as crucial for enhancing government eff ectiveness and locking
in recent gains in this area:
1. Increasing bureaucratic salaries and diversifying the candidate pool by targeting underrepresented
groups and those likely to face some discrimination in the private labor market.
2. Developing an elite cadre of senior civil servants as a desirable career path.
3. Streamlining the number of line ministries, cutting their number roughly in half, while shifting
staffi ng to interministerial coordinating secretariats. In particular, the government should consider
merging the Ministries of National Planning and Finance to unite strategic planning and budgeting
under one ministry.
4. Achieving a comprehensive ceasefi re with various armed groups.
5. Reforming electoral law to encourage development of more national parties, either by requiring
parties to run candidates in all constituencies or by introducing some form of preference voting.
6. Increasing involvement of the private sector (private industry, think tanks, and independent
educational institutions) in the policy formation process.
7. Conducting a comprehensive land survey—security conditions permitting—in order to establish a
current cadaster map of the country’s territory and promote transparency in land use and tenure. Th e
Ministry of Finance and Revenue should conduct this survey.
8. Using EITI as a means to lever Myanmar’s indigenous good governance eff orts in the extractive
sector, and more broadly, exploiting opportunities to anchor broader policy reforms, including
anticorruption eff orts, to international best practices. Specifi cally, in implementing EITI Myanmar
can
require company-by-company disclosure,
extend EITI to oil, gas, minerals, and timber,
look favorably on bids by EITI stakeholder fi rms committed to transparency, and
participate in EITI+ and EITI++ extending the transparency initiative upstream to contracting
and procurement and downstream to expenditure.
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Likewise, a similar set of arguments holds for foreign anticorruption statutes such as the US FCPA
more broadly. Specifi cally, the government of Myanmar should look favorably on bids by fi rms based in
jurisdictions with strong antibribery laws and enforcement, thereby “piggy-backing” on the more rigorous
standards of foreign partners; if fi rms that fall under the jurisdiction of those governments (whether they
be headquartered in that country or not) while in Myanmar violate those countries’ anticorruption laws,
then the government of Myanmar can appeal to those foreign governments for support in prosecuting
corrupt activity. When evaluating potential foreign participants in resource extraction the government of
Myanmar should take into account whether those fi rms are subject to the laws of the United States, the
European Union, or other jurisdictions with strong antibribery laws and histories of extraterritorial legal
cooperation, and give preference to those fi rms (regardless of nationality) whose behavior in Myanmar
will be constrained by anticorruption statutes elsewhere. In short, Myanmar should use international
initiatives such as EITI and FCPA to leverage its reform eff orts while building its indigenous institutional
capacity.