Burma is one of the poorest countries in Asia. Four decades of military rule and economic mismanagement have resulted in widespread poverty, poor health care and low educational standards, with an estimated 75% of the population living below the poverty line. While the regime spends up to 50% of its budget on the military, investment in education and healthcare combined is less than $1 per person per year - one of the lowest levels of public investment in the world.

Burma’s poorest and most vulnerable population groups lack adequate food supply. There is widespread malnutrition with one quarter of all infants born underweight, one in three children aged five being moderately to severely malnourished and one in ten dying before they reach the age of five. Although dire across the country, the humanitarian situation for people in ethnic nationality areas along Burma’s borders remains particularly severe.

The Burma Campaign UK has been urging the Department for International Development (DFID) to provide more aid to some of the most vulnerable people in the country and to support projects promoting human rights and democracy in Burma.

The root cause of this humanitarian crisis is the lack of an accountable democratic government. Better governance remains the only ultimate answer to Burma’s humanitarian crisis and any strategy for tackling poverty in Burma must take this into account. While DFID could play a crucial role in alleviating poverty in Burma and tackling the root causes of that poverty, at present it is failing to support democracy in Burma, and failing to provide aid to some of the most vulnerable people in the country.