LIFT Semi Annual Report 2016 Highlights Rural Progress

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We thank the governments of Australia, Denmark, the European Union, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New
Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United States of America for their kind contributions to improving the
livelihoods and food security of rural poor people in Myanmar. Their support to the Livelihoods and Food Security Trust Fund (LIFT) is
gratefully acknowledged. We would also like to thank the Mitsubishi Corporation, as LIFT’s first private sector donor.
DISCLAIMER
This internal document is based on information from projects funded by LIFT in 2016 and supported with financial assistance from
Australia, Denmark, the European Union, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland,
the United Kingdom, the United States of America, and the Mitsubishi Corporation. The views expressed herein can in no way be taken
to reflect the official opinion of the European Union, the governments of Australia, Denmark, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the
Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America, or the Mitsubishi Corporation.
This report builds on LIFT’s previous Annual Reports, which can be found at www.lift-fund.org/publications
Photography by LIFT and partners

CBM Central Bank of Myanmar
CBO community-based organisation
CSO civil society organisation
DAR Department of Agricultural Research
DC Donor Consortium
DoA Department of Agriculture
DoF Department of Fisheries
DRD Department for Rural Development
DSW Department of Social Welfare
FB Fund Board
FEG Farmer Experimental Groups
FMO Fund Management Office
FPE Farmer Producer Enterprise
FRD Financial Regulatory Department
FSIN Food Security Information Network
FSWG Food Security Working Group
GAD General Administration Department
GRET Group de Recherches et d’Echanges
Technologiques
IFC International Finance Corporation
INGO international non-governmental organisation
IP implementing partner
LEARN Leveraging Essential Nutrition Actions To Reduce
Malnutrition project
MAFF Management Advice or Family Farms
MAHFP Months of adequate household food provisioning
MCCT Maternal and Child Cash Transfer
MEAL monitoring and evaluation for accountability and
learning
MFI Microfinance Institution
MMA Myanmar Microfinance Association
MMK Myanmar Kyat
MOAI Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation
MOC Ministry of Cooperatives
MoLFRD Ministry of Livestock, Fisheries and Rural
Development
NLD National League for Democracy
NLUP National Land Use Policy
NUDI Nutrition Development Initiative
PGMF Pact Global Microfinance
PGS Participatory Guarantee System
PoVAW Prevention of Violence Against WomenLaw
QSEM Qualitative Social and Economic Monitoring
SCC Savings and Credit Cooperatives
SLRD Settlement and Land Record Department
SPPRG Social Policy & Poverty Research Group
SRG self-reliance groups
SRI system of rice intensification
TVET Technical Vocational Education and Training
UNOPS United Nations Office for Project Services
VDC village development committee
VSLA village savings and loan association
WASH water, sanitation and hygiene
WHH Welthungerhilfe
Abbreviations and Acronyms

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Abbreviations and Acronyms
1. Executive Summary 6
2. Results 11
LIFT’s new logical framework
LIFT’s baseline results and achievements January – June 2016
Activity monitoring
3. Geographic Areas 23
3.1 Ayeyarwady Delta 26
3.2 Dry Zone 34
3.3 Uplands 40
3.4 Rakhine 47
4. Thematic Areas 57
4.1 Financial inclusion 57
4.2 Private sector engagement 59
4.3 Working with civil society 63
4.4 Migration 66
4.5 Gender 69
5. Policy Engagement 72
6. Fund Management 76
6.1 Governance review
6.2 Allocation of LIFT funds
6.3 Monitoring and evaluation for accountability and learning
6.4 Knowledge management
6.5 Communications
6.6 Finance
7. Annexes 87
7.1 Active projects
7.2 Projects signed and projects closed
7.3 Policy activity summary chart
7.4 Summary of main studies, reports

LIFT continues to deliver strong results. At the
end of 2015, LIFT had met or exceeded 84 per cent of its
targets, including helping 500,000 households (2.1 million
people) measurably improve their food security (measured
in terms of one month’s additional food availability),
and contributing to a reduction in the stunting rates of
children under five years from 32 per cent in 2013 to 29 per
cent in 2015. These outcomes cannot be updated on six
month intervals, as survey data is only collected annually.
However, data collected directly from implementing
partners indicates that LIFT continues to expand its reach
and continues to improve the lives of rural people. Chapter
two provides information about LIFT’s progress against its
logframe indicators.
LIFT’s reach, particularly in financial services,
is so extensive that LIFT ‘control’ villages for the
household survey have had to be abandoned. Seventy
per cent of the control villages that LIFT selected in 2011
are now receiving financial services from LIFT-supported
partners. With the ‘contamination’ of control villages,
more sensitive evaluation methods are needed to tease
out programme effects. With this in mind, rudimentary
logistic regression methods were piloted in 2016 based
on LIFT’s household study data. The preliminary results
indicate that households that received agriculture
and livestock training experienced significantly better
outcomes than those that did not: i) households that
received training in agriculture were 2.1 times more likely
to indicate that their income had increased, compared
to those that did not receive training; ii) LIFT households
trained in agriculture and livestock were 2.1 and 2.5 times
more likely respectively to indicate that their total assets
and wealth had increased; and, iii) LIFT households that
received training in agriculture were 4.2 times more likely
to indicate that their crop yields had increased. More
sophisticated analyses, including controlling for several
key factors, are planned for late 2016.
LIFT’s new geographic programmes are now
in place. LIFT made good progress in the first half of 2016
in awarding, negotiating and signing grants for its new
programmes. The table below shows that 12 new grants
were signed in the reporting period. Only the Uplands
Programme still has grants to sign from the original call for
proposals in 2015. As of 30 June 2016, LIFT had a total of 60
ongoing projects that were active in 222 townships and 10
Regions and States. See Chapter three for details on each
of LIFT’s geographic programmes: the Delta, Dry Zone,
Uplands and Rakhine.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
LIFT is now reaching 12 per cent of the rural population in Myanmar.
All of these people have access to LIFT-supported financial services. As of 30 June 2016, LIFT supported 42 financial ser-
vice providers, who in turn disbursed over USD 300 million worth of loans to nearly 1 million clients, of whom 93 per cent
were women, in more than 13,200 villages countrywide. These households include 4.36 million people or 12 per cent of
Myanmar’s rural population.
LIFT’s thematic programmes, which cross-cut all geographic zones, also
made good progress. LIFT now has cross-cutting programmes in financial
inclusion, nutrition, migration and civil society engagement.
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Table 1: Progress towards establishing LIFT’s new geographic programmes (to 30 June 2016)
Programme
Original CfP
amount (USD)
Proposals
selected
Grants
signed in
2015
Grants
signed in
2016
Value of grants
signed (USD)
Delta 3 16 million 8 5 3 15.7 million
Rakhine 22 million 7 6 1 29.9 million
Dry Zone 21 million 9 5 4 26.6 million
Uplands 42 million 8 0 4 7.8 million
Totals 149 million 32 16 12 80.0 million
The new programmes include significant new investments in conflict-affected areas. An important
consideration for the Uplands Programme design has been the inclusion of ‘areas emerging from conflict’
and in particular targeting people with a history of displacement, providing development opportunities
to people who have only had access to humanitarian aid. The Fund Management Office has undertaken
conflict assessment missions to ensure that projects in these areas have robust conflict management
mechanisms in place. LIFT also expanded its activities in conflict-affected areas of Rakhine State. New
projects were launched in Rathedaung and Maungdaw, both in northern Rakhine.
LIFT-supported microfinance services now account for more than half of the total number of clients
in Myanmar and two-thirds of the total value of the loans outstanding. LIFT-supported microfinance
services continue to expand rapidly. The growth over the first six months of 2016 represents a 16 per cent
increase in the number of clients and a 44 per cent increase in the total value of loans provided. Of the
nearly 1 million clients that LIFT partners have nationwide, 290,000 households have current agricultural
loans, equivalent to USD 92 million for the monsoon crop. Also, over the reporting period, there was
a 100 per cent increase in the number of LIFT-supported microfinance providers that have reached
financial sustainability. This includes nine organisations that are part of the Pact Global Microfinance
Fund-implemented Myanmar Access to Rural Credit project, which aims to ensure both the operational
and financial sustainability of local microfinance NGOs. This project has been extended two more years
to get these organisations to institutional sustainability.
LIFT’s financial inclusion programme continues to evolve from an exclusive focus on microfinance
to a model that supports rural financial services in the wider context of structural transformation
in Myanmar. In addition to agricultural finance through microfinance providers, LIFT started a new
agricultural hire purchase programme in partnership with Yoma Bank in order to enable smallholder
farmerstoaccessmechanisedfarmservicesfromsmallbusinesses.TheYomaBankPartialRiskGuarantee
project was officially launched in January 2016. As part of the project, Yoma has reduced the down
payment size from 30 per cent to 10 per cent of the value of the machinery, has increased the length of
the lease agreement from one year to up to three years, and has eliminated the need for farmers to use
their land use certificates as collateral. By the end of June 2016, the total number of lease contracts had
reached 1,197, with a value of USD 16.35 million. Tractors are the most popular product financed under
the programme, followed by combine harvesters and transport trucks. Close to 40 per cent of the leasing
volume has been in the Dry Zone, with 23 per cent in the Delta. Additional research work conducted by
Michigan State University shows, at least in the rural townships around Yangon, that the pace of farm
mechanisation has accelerated rapidly in the last year and that all farmers, regardless of farm size, are
mechanising at more or less the same rate. This indicates that smallholder farmers are taking advantage
of the increased access to mechanised services that the Yoma Bank project is enabling. The project
plans to pilot with ‘Wave Money’ which is Yoma Bank’s affiliated mobile phone based payment service
partnered with Telenor. Wave Money has set up 3,500 Wave shops nationwide. Other services being
explored by the project include promoting savings among rural communities and providing financial
literacy training.
LIFT introduced major new nutrition interventions to reduce stunting in the under-five age group.
In June, LIFT organised a high-profile event in Labutta to launch the Bright Sun nutrition project that
features maternal and child cash transfers (MCCTs). The launch included senior officials from the
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National Nutrition Centre, the Department of Social Welfare, local and regional governments, donor
representatives and the press. The project in the Delta builds on the successful MCCT pilot in Rakhine,
which has already demonstrated a reduction in stunting in children under five years. Also in the reporting
period, the FMO became an active member of the UN Network on Nutrition and Food Security. LIFT also
published two LEARN reports on the causes of under-nutrition in Myanmar. Finally, the LIFT-funded PATH
project received approval from Myanmar’s Food and Drug Authority for its fortified rice kernels as well as
for three fortified rice production facilities. Fortified rice is currently distributed in 33 supermarkets and
100 retailers in Yangon and Ayeyarwady Regions as well as seven other townships across the country.
PATH also established the government-led Rice Fortification Working Group in March 2016.
LIFT’s migration programme has been established. During the reporting period, LIFT signed a grant
agreement with the International Labour Organisation (ILO) to work on policies and practices regarding
international and internal migration in Myanmar with an emphasis on training state and local officials
(72 so far) on labour migration management. This builds on LIFT’s work with International Organisation
for Migration (IOM), which focuses on developing knowledge resources to understand the motivations,
patterns and dynamics of migration. This work is being done in partnership with the IOM, and the
Ministry of Labour, Immigration, and Population. A particular policy focus of LIFT’s migration work is the
rights of female migrant domestic workers, with the aim of ratifying Convention 189 on Decent Work for
Domestic Workers and the development of effective regulations. Through a call for proposals in early
2016, LIFT explored additional partnerships to implement specific migration-related activities on issues
such as awareness, skills development, financial literacy and services, and innovative job matching
services. A new partnership with BBC Media Action, starting in October, aims to increase awareness of
the opportunities and risks of labour migration and remittances. Further proposals are currently under
review as LIFT is seeking new partners to foster safe migration and work towards empowerment of
migrant women in urban centres.
In 2015, LIFT identified a need to review and redefine its gender strategy. In the first six months of
2016 a gender review was carried out. The review made recommendations that informed the drafting of
a new gender strategy, the purpose of which is to upscale LIFT’s work towards women´s empowerment
and gender equality through its programmes. The strategy and action plan are still under review and
will be shared and implemented in the second half of 2016. Whilst the strategy is being finalised LIFT
continues to build the resilience of women and work towards greater gender equality and women’s
empowerment through its programmes, policy work and governance policies. Highlights of LIFT’s work
on gender are detailed in section 4.5 of this report.
LIFT’s engagement with Myanmar civil society took a major step forward in the first half of 2016
with the implementation of new initiatives. The new measures have increased the proportion of LIFT
funds being granted to Myanmar Civil Society Organisations (CSOs). In the first half of 2016, LIFT signed
14 new contracts, of which eight were directly with Myanmar NGOs. It is expected that 35 per cent of
LIFT’s grant funding in 2016 will be managed by Myanmar NGOs with direct grants from LIFT, reversing a
decline in LIFT engagements with Myanmar NGOs in 2015. The most innovative of these initiatives is the
small grants windows that LIFT is introducing in three of its four geographic zones. Although the grants
for these windows have not yet been signed, significant progress in their design was made during the
reporting period. In addition, LIFT continued to work on strategic partnerships with a number of national
NGOs that share LIFT’s values and objectives. Three strategic partnerships have been signed, with three
more under negotiation.
LIFT continues to engage with government policy across all of its programmes and many of its
projects, with particular emphasis on policy areas with the most relevance to LIFT’s objectives.
Chapter five highlights changes in the policy environment – and LIFT’s engagement – in financial
inclusion, land tenure security and nutrition.
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The recent changes in microfinance policy by
the Financial Regulation Department (FRD) will
assist LIFT’s partners, who provide financial
services for 50 per cent of microfinance clients
in Myanmar. Despite the high demand for financial
services, the existing regulatory framework
restricts microfinance providers in a number of key
areas, particularly in the ability to access capital to
expand their services. To address these issues, the
LIFT-supported Myanmar Microfinance Association
(MMA) organised a series of policy dialogues
with the FRD to draft a Microfinance Policy. FRD
subsequently circulated five new directives that
lift some of the restrictive regulations, but the new
regulations are unlikely to enable MFIs to access
new capital, which remains the main constraint to
the growth of the sector.
The National Land Use Policy (NLUP) received cabinet endorsement by the previous government in
January 2016. While an official policy, it remains unclear how the new NLD-led government is going to
bring forward this agenda. LIFT is supporting the development of the NLUP through the Land Core Group,
whichbecameoneofLIFT’sstrategiccivilsocietypartnersin2016.LIFTalsodevelopedarelationshipwith
Landesa, which has been advising the NLD on land policy for two years. Discussions with Landesa have
provided new opportunities for LIFT and the Land Core Group to engage with NLD leaders and the new
Minister of Natural Resources and Environmental Conservation. As part of this new dialogue, Landesa
and the Ayeyarwady Regional Government requested LIFT’s support for allocating available public land
to landless households. LIFT has proposed an independent field assessment of the planned pilot sites to
ensure the government has sufficient knowledge about current land use and potential conflicting land
claims within local communities. The Land Core Group has agreed to lead this assessment. In parallel to
the government’s agenda, the Karen National Union (KNU) has released its own land use policy. The KNU
is active in land registration in areas under their control, an issue that LIFT will be forced to contend with
as it starts new activities later in 2016 in KNU-controlled areas.
In March 2016, after the election of the new NLD-led government, the donors to LIFT agreed to
invite the newly-formed Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Irrigation to join the Fund Board.
The government accepted the invitation and assigned the Department of Planning within the ministry to
perform the role of Fund Board member. The first meeting with government representation is planned for
September 2016. The government’s participation in the LIFT Fund Board eliminates the primary function
of the Senior Consultation Group and alternative mechanisms for getting civil society and private sector
input to the Fund Board are being considered.
Despite significant new contributions in recent years from existing donors to LIFT, nearly all of
LIFT’s funding has now been allocated. The Fund Board continued to closely monitor the allocation
of LIFT funding across its portfolio of geographic and thematic programmes. In both the March and May
meetings of the Fund Board, decisions were taken to ensure LIFT has some flexibility to address priorities
of the new government in as much as those priorities are in line with LIFT’s strategy and further the
achievement of LIFT’s desired outcomes. However, LIFT’s flexibility is limited with only USD 7.3 million
that has not been granted or earmarked for a particular activity.
In an effort to raise new contributions, LIFT developed a new policy on restricted financial
contributions. At the beginning of the year, the Fund Board explored options for encouraging new
donors to join LIFT in order to: i) provide new resources for programming; and, ii) achieve more balance
in donor contributions. In March, the Fund Board endorsed the principle of accepting restricted financial
contributions under certain conditions. A formal policy on restricted financial contributions was
subsequently approved by the Donor Consortium.
Inanefforttoraisenewcontributions,
LIFT developed a new policy on
restricted financial contributions. At the
beginning of the year, the Fund Board
explored options for encouraging new
donorstojoinLIFTinorderto:(i)provide
new resources for programming; and,
(ii) achieve more balance in donor
contributions. In March, the Fund Board
endorsed the principle of accepting
restricted financial contributions under
certain conditions. A formal policy on
restricted financial contributions was
subsequently approved by the Donor
Consortium.
9

The FMO ensured that Value-for-Money (VfM) metrics were used in the appraisal and contracting
negotiations in all new grants. For each of the geographic programmes, context-specific metrics were
introduced in the call for proposals and grant negotiation processes. For example, the Uplands call for
proposal process included specific VfM evaluation criteria for both concept note and full proposal stages,
using these calculations to eliminate 13, or 18 per cent, of concept notes from consideration. VfM was re-
assessed during the contracting procedures, not only focusing on cutting costs, but making sure budgets
were fit for purpose. Four projects actually received budget increases to ensure they were resourced
sufficiently to meet MEAL targets. In contrast, specific VfM calculations were not required in the Delta
call for proposals, which allowed applicants to demonstrate alternative, innovative approaches to VfM.
Metrics and VfM calculation frameworks were then developed during the grant negotiation phase.
The FMO continued to refine the new MEAL framework, undertaking several M&E-related studies,
and strengthening the M&E capacities of its implementing partners. The main activities in 2016
were: i) overseeing the implementation of the LIFT household study, which consisted of 4,800 general
questionnaires, 1,500 expenditure questionnaires, and the anthropometric measurement of 5,039
children; ii) launching the QSEM 5 and related migration study, as well as overseeing the re-design and
implementation of the QSEM 6 study; iii) designing a series of in-depth outcome studies on vulnerability
and resilience, income and assets, and nutrition; and, iv) defining the new logframe indicators, including
documenting each indicator’s data sources, collection methods, and calculation procedures. In addition
tobuildingitsownanditspartnersM&Esystems,inearly2016LIFThelpedlaunchtheMyanmarMonitoring
and Evaluation Association, a professional association with a membership of 50 people including M&E
practitioners from Myanmar NGOs, INGOs, UN organisations, academia, private consulting firms, and
government agencies.
LIFT’s knowledge management was significantly strengthened and mainstreamed into the
FMO’s M&E and policy work. An external assessment of LIFT’s knowledge management capabilities
was commissioned in early 2016 and a Knowledge Development Analyst was recruited in late April.
This has helped LIFT refine its approach to knowledge management and resulted in a new knowledge
management objective, set of principles, and framework. The FMO also explored, trialled and, in some
cases, implemented, tools and systems to support LIFT’s knowledge management objectives. A pilot to
analyse project narrative reports in order to capture information on LIFT’s priority policy areas is being
developed, an inventory of all LIFT publications by focus area was carried out, and the ‘Knowledge
Sharing” section of LIFT’s website was redesigned.
LIFT’s communications continued to provide good visibility to all donors. The FMO further developed
its communication abilities with the collation of all publications into a resource library on its website, and
a new series of social media campaigns such as #LIFTPeople that highlights how beneficiaries interact
with LIFT projects. LIFT also remained active on social media, engaging especially through its Facebook
page, the primary social media platform in Myanmar. A ‘What is LIFT’ video was filmed in April 2016 and
LIFT programme and publication launches have been covered across Myanmar media outlets including
MITV, MRTV, the Myanmar Times and others.
Projected expenditure on LIFT for 2016 is expected to be 23 per cent lower than originally budgeted.
This is almost all due to projected under-expenditure in grant payments to partners. The main projected
variances are as follows: i) the overall grant size of the Uplands window was reduced by 60 per cent from
the initial allocation; ii) in the Dry Zone, Save the Children’s LEGACY project was reduced from USD 8
million to USD 5 million with a lower amount for year 1, and the pump irrigation project was delayed due
to wanting to discuss this project with the new government; iii) the size of the PRIME grant is expected
to be reduced significantly; and iv) from the initial migration call for proposals only three grants were
awarded. A new CfP will be posted in September, but will only result in grants payments in 2017.
The LIFT FMO continued to demonstrate high standards of programme and fiduciary management.
The annual audit of the LIFT FMO for the year 2015 was carried out in May 2016. The audit firm provided an
overall assessment of the operational and internal control systems that are in place for the management
of LIFT funding. The auditors gave a satisfactory rating overall, as well as satisfactory on the various
functional areas that were in the scope of the audit, such as project management, finance, procurement,
human resources and general administration. LIFT received an unqualified audit opinion on the Financial
Statements as of 31 December 2015.
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Results
2.1 LIFT’s new logical framework
In 2015, in consultation with LIFT staff, IP staff, and additional technical experts, LIFT revised its logical
frameworktoreflectthenewstrategy. Basedonthisnewstrategyanditscorrespondingtheoryofchange,
LIFT’s logframe now consists of four purpose-level outcome statements, each measured by two to four
indicators. These purpose-level indicators capture income levels, income diversity, asset ownership,
resilience, food security, diet diversity, stunting, and public and private policy and expenditure changes.
The new logframe also has eight programme-level outcome statements, each measured by two to six
specific indicators that include both outreach and outcome-type indicators. LIFT captures a wide range
of programme-level indicators including use of improved agricultural practices, agricultural productivity,
establishment of enterprises, use of financial services, awareness of women and children’s nutritional
needs, child diet diversity, exclusive breast feeding, use of improved sanitation facilities and water
sources, and policy-oriented events and publications.
Overall, LIFT’s revised logframe consists of 11 purpose-level and 25 programme-level indicators. Twenty-
four of these indicators are new, nine are slightly revised but can continue to use data collected under the
previous logframe, and three remain the same. To measure indicators more accurately and consistently,
all purpose-level indicators will now be measured by the LIFT Household Survey and Household Tracking
Survey. The results of the programme-level indicators have two sources: implementing partner (IP)
monitoring data and LIFT surveys.
2.2 LIFT’s baseline results and achievements January – June 2016
The data for most outreach indicators is provided by LIFT’s implementing partners every six months. The
outreach data listed below is cumulative from 2010 to June 2016.
Most of the outcome indicator data below is derived from the LIFT 2015 Household Survey, which consists
of a representative sample of 4,832 households. Of the households surveyed in LIFT villages, 20.8 per
cent are female-headed. 1
This report does not include milestones and targets. The current estimates need to be recalculated to
better reflect actual funding levels, to account for unpredicted weather-related events, and to take into
account newly available baseline data.
1. To obtain the number of households for relevant outcome indicators, most household survey results are extrapolated to the total number of LIFT
target households (307, 196) under LIFT’s new programmes. For specific indicators, results are extrapolated to the relevant sub-population. To obtain the
number of female-headed households for any one indicator, the appropriate survey statistic is extrapolated to 20.8 per cent of the total number of LIFT
target households.
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Purpose-level indicators
Table 2: Purpose-level indicators: Baseline Results and Achievements
Indicator Achievement/Baseline June 2016
Data
Source
Total
Disaggre-
gated by Sex
PURPOSE: To strengthen the resilience and sustainable livelihoods of the rural poor in Myanmar
PO 1: Increased incomes of rural households
PO 1.1: Number of LIFT households with increased
income (by sex of HH head)
N/A *
M N/A HH survey
2015F N/A
PO 1.2: Percentage of households in LIFT villages
below the poverty line (by sex of HH head)
13 per
cent **
M N/A HH survey
2015F N/A
PO 2: Decreased vulnerabilities of rural households and communities to shocks, stresses and adverse
trends
asset ownership score (by sex of HH head)
N/A
M N/A
HH survey
2015
F N/A
income diversity score (by sex of HH head)
N/A
M N/A
HH survey
2015
F N/A
PO 2.3: Number of people whose resilience has been
improved and ability to cope has increased (by sex)
N/A
M N/A
HH survey
2015
F N/A
PO 3: Improved nutrition of women and children.
PO 3.1 Number of LIFT households with an acceptable
food diversity score (by sex of HH head)
272,957
hhs
M 216,536 hhs
HH survey
2015
F 56,421 hhs
PO 3.2: Number of LIFT households with an increase
in food security by at least one month (by sex of HH
head)
N/A
M N/A
HH survey
2015
F N/A
PO 3.3: Proportion of moderately/ severely stunted
children under 5 years of age in LIFT villages (by sex
and age group)
28 per
cent
M 30 per cent
HH survey
2015
F 26 per cent
PO 3.4: Proportion of children under 5 with diarrhoea
in the previous 2 weeks (by sex and age group)
20 per
cent
M 21 per cent
HH survey
2015
F 18 per cent
PO 4: Improved policies and effective public expenditure for pro-poor development
PO 4.1: Number and type of public sector/rural
development policy influenced by LIFT
5 FMO
PO 4.2: Number and type of changes in public
sector/rural development budget allocation and
spending influenced by LIFT
1 FMO
* For outcome indicators that include “increase”, which need to be measured over time, results are not available (“N/A”) at this time. In LIFT’s new
programme areas, the 2015 household survey measures baseline values only.
** Preliminary result, yet to be finalised
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PO 1: Increased incomes of rural households
Purpose indicator 1.1: Number of LIFT households with increased income (by sex of HH
head)
Because 2015 was the start of LIFT’s new programmes, it is not yet possible to report on this indicator.
Purpose indicator 1.2: Percentage of households in LIFT villages below the poverty line (by
sex of HH head)
Using the poverty line of USD 1.25 per day, as used in previous LIFT household surveys, and accounting
for inflation, the proportion of LIFT households living below the poverty line is 13 per cent in both LIFT’s
old and new programme areas surveyed in LIFT’s 2015 Household Survey. This is a significant decrease
from the 31 per cent measured in LIFT’s 2013 survey. These results are still preliminary and are yet
to be finalised. In addition, LIFT is looking at recalculating the 2015 expenditure data to fit the new
international poverty line of USD 1.90 per day.
PO 2: Decreased vulnerabilities of rural households and communities to shocks,
stresses and adverse trends
Purpose indicator 2.1: Number of LIFT households with increased asset ownership (by sex
of HH head)
Purpose indicator 2.2: Number of target households with increased income diversity score
(by sex of HH head)
Because 2015 was the start of LIFT’s new programmes, it is not yet possible to report on changes in
respondents’ income diversity score. However, a baseline has been established with the 2015 household
survey. New LIFT areas had a mean income diversity score of 2.3, and 35.5 per cent of the sample in LIFT
villages reported having two or more sources of income. There was little difference in the proportion of
male- and female-headed households having two or more sources of income, with 35 per cent and 34 per
cent respectively.
Purpose indicator 2.3: Number of people whose resilience has been improved and ability
to cope has increased (by sex)
Because 2015 was the start of LIFT’s new programmes, it is not yet possible to report on the change
in respondents’ level of resilience and coping ability. In the future this indicator will be measured by
calculating the number of individuals in LIFT’s household surveys who show changes in select purpose
and programme-level outcomes. In addition, LIFT is conducting an in-depth study on resilience and
vulnerability, consisting of a quantitative vulnerability index and corresponding qualitative narratives of
change.
PO 3: Improved nutrition of women and children
Purpose indicator 3.1: Number of LIFT households with an acceptable food diversity score
Because this indicator measures a particular threshold, it is possible to report baseline results from the
2015 Household Survey. Following the recommendations of the Food and Nutrition Technical Assistance
(FANTA) project, LIFT considers five as an acceptable food diversity score. In the LIFT 2015 Household
Survey, 89 per cent of households surveyed within new programme areas had a household food diversity
score of five or above. When extrapolated to LIFT new programme areas, nearly 273,000 households are
estimated to have an acceptable food diversity score. There was little difference in the proportion of male
and female-headed households having an acceptable household food diversity score, with 89 per cent
and 88 per cent respectively.
Purpose indicator 3.2: Number of LIFT households with an increase in food security by at
least one month (by sex of HH head)
14

Purpose indicator 3.3: Proportion of moderately/ severely stunted children under 5 years
of age in LIFT villages (by sex and age group)
As measured in the 2015 Household Survey through anthropometric methods, the baseline stunting rate
for children under five years of age is 28 per cent. The rate for girls at 26 per cent was considerably lower
than for boys at 30 per cent. It is interesting to note that this rate is equal to the findings of the Myanmar
Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) 2009-10.
Purpose indicator 3.4: Proportion of children under 5 with diarrhoea in the previous 2
weeks (by sex and age group)
InLIFT’snewprogrammeareasandaccordingtothe2015HouseholdSurvey,20percentofchildrenunder
five years of age were found to have had diarrhoea in the previous two weeks, with a small difference
between boys at 21 per cent and girls at 18 per cent. This overall percentage is considerably higher than
the national rate of seven per cent reported in the Myanmar MICS 2009-10. However, this difference could
be due to seasonal variations of when the two surveys were administered.
PO4:Improvedpoliciesandeffectivepublicexpenditureforpro-poordevelopment
Purpose indicator 4.1: Number and type of public sector/rural development policy and
programme changes influenced by LIFT
This indicator is tracked by both the FMO and IPs. From January to June 2016, five IPs reported to have
influenced five different policies. For maternal and child cash transfers (MCCTs), Save the Children has
been a key stakeholder in two high-level working group meetings hosted by the DSW and UNICEF, along
with a number of key line ministries and parliamentarians. HelpAge has also contributed through their
pilot project in cash transfers, through which the working relationship with the General Administration
Department was strengthened. The change in policy is the new government’s programme in Chin state
that will provide MCCTs to all pregnant mothers through until their child’s second birthday. It is planned
as a donor-funded scheme for the first two years and then will be taken over by the government.
For rice fortification, PATH successfully advocated to the Minister of Health and Sports on the continued
need for the National Rice Fortification Alliance (consisting of the Rice Fortification Working Group
[RFWG] and the Rice Fortification Focal Team [RFFT]) to successfully introduce fortified rice. The RFWG
subsequently endorsed the first draft of the national rice fortification policy document in March 2016. The
government also indicated a particular interest in the rice fortification as a tool for tackling malnutrition
at the RFWG meeting in June 2016. Development of a draft policy on national rice fortification was
conducted in conjunction with the Nutrition Development Initiative (NUDI) and other stakeholder
groups. All policy documents have been reviewed and endorsed by the RFWG. Partners also reported
affecting policy changes in social protection (HelpAge), land policy (LCG on the NLUP), and beekeeping
policy (TAG).
Purpose indicator 4.2: Number and type of changes in public sector/rural development
budget allocation and spending influenced by LIFT’s interventions
In the first half of 2016, LIFT influenced one change in public sector budget allocation through the IP
HelpAge. Through its work with the DSW, HelpAge influenced the launch of the one-time payment of
old age pensions for people over the age of 90. This is not a regular payment yet, but it allowed the
government to take stock of the number of people in need and transfer mechanisms. HelpAge continues
to work for the launch of this old age pension nationwide.
15

Program-level indicators
Table 3: Programme Outcome 1: Increased sustainable agriculture and farm-based production by
smallholder farmers
Pr 1: Increased sustainable agriculture and farm-based production by smallholder farmers
Pr 1.1: Number of LIFT households reached by advisory
services (by sex of HH head)*
143,616
hhs
M
105,563
hhs IP data
June 2016
F 38,053 hhs
Pr 1.2: Number of LIFT households who trial and/or
adopt improved practices, inputs and technologies
(by sex of HH head)
N/A
M N/A
HH survey
2015
F N/A
Pr 1.3: Number of LIFT households with an increase in
production – crops only (by sex of HH head)
N/A
M N/A HH survey
2015
F N/A
* Data is reported as a cumulative total
Pr 1.1: Number of LIFT households reached by advisory services
From the start of LIFT’s programmes in 2010, 25 implementing partners report to have reached a
cumulative total of over 143,000 households by advisory services, of which 26 per cent were female-
headed households. From January to June 2016, five IPs report to have reached over 4,500 households in
LIFT’s new programme areas, including Mercy Corps, WHH, IFDC, TAG and Radanar Ayar.
Pr 1.2: Number of LIFT households who trial and/or adopt improved practices, inputs and
technologies
Pr 1.3: Number of LIFT households with an increase in production – crops only
Table 4: Programme Outcome 2: Improved market access and market terms for smallholder
farmers
Pr 1: Increased sustainable agriculture and farm-based production by smallholder farmers
Pr 2.1: Number of LIFT households who are members
of functional producer groups (by sex of HH head)*
4 7 , 8 9 9
hhs
M 35,061 hhs
IP data
June 2016
F 12,838 hhs
Pr 2.2 Number of LIFT households adopting new
marketing practices (by sex of HH head)
N/A
M N/A
HH survey
2015
F N/A
Pr 2.3: Number of LIFT households securing higher
returns (profit) from agriculture/livestock/fishery
activities (by sex of HH head)
N/A
M N/A HH survey
2015
N/A
Pr 2.1: Number of LIFT households who are members of functional producer groups (by
sex of HH head)
IPs reported that nearly 50,000 households were or had become, members of producer groups since
2010, of which 12,800, or roughly 25 per cent, were female-headed households. By far the most common
type of groups are agricultural and livestock producers. The IPs reporting the highest numbers include
Mercy Corps (11,000 households), ActionAid (4,500 households), CESVI (3,500 households) and Proximity
Design (3,000 households).
Pr 2.2: Number of LIFT households adopting new marketing practices (by sex of HH head)
16

Pr 2.3: Number of LIFT households securing higher returns (profit) from agriculture/
livestock/ fishery activities (by sex of HH head)
Table 5: Programme Outcome 3: Increased and safe employment in non-farm activities for
smallholders and landless
Pr 3: Increased and safe employment in non-farm activities for smallholders and landless
Pr 3.1: Number of LIFT households supported in
non-agricultural skills development (by sex of HH
head)*
22,833
hhs
M 8,702 hhs
IP data
June 2016
F 14,131 hhs
Pr 3.2: Number of trained people who establish their
own enterprises or become employed (by sex)
N/A
M N/A
HH survey
2015
F N/A
Pr 3.3: Number of LIFT households with an increase in
income from non-agricultural activities (by sex of HH
head)
N/A
M N/A HH survey
2015N/A
Pr 3.1: Number of LIFT households supported in non-agricultural skills development (by
sex of HH head)
From 2010 to the end of June 2016, 14 implementing partners report training or supporting a total of
22,833individualsinnon-agriculturalskillsdevelopment,whereoneindividualrepresentsonehousehold.
Slightly more than 60 per cent of those supported were women. Of this total, nearly 7,500 households
were supported from January-June 2016. The support has mostly taken the form of vocational training
in areas such as tailoring, hairdressing, mechanics, food processing and, more recently, the introduction
and expansion of modern beekeeping and honey production, by such IPs as ActionAid, ADRA, GRET and
TAG.
Pr 3.2: Number of trained people who establish their own enterprises or become employed
(by sex)
Pr 3.3: Number of LIFT households with an increase in income from non-agricultural
activities
Table 6: Programme Outcome 4: Increased access to adequate and affordable financial services
by smallholders and landless
Pr 4: Increased access to adequate and affordable financial services by smallholders and landless
Pr 4.1: Number of LIFT MFIs financially self-sustaining 12 MFIs
FMO June
2016
Pr 4.3: Number of LIFT households accessing financial
services by purpose (by sex of HH head)
991,995
hhs
M 64,001 hhs
FMO June
2016
F
927,994
hhs
Pr 4.1: Number of LIFT MFIs financially self-sustaining
LIFT continues to support 42 microfinance partners, including nine local microfinance organisations,
24 credit cooperatives, three international microfinance NGOs, and four international microfinance
companies. Of these 42 microfinance partners, 12 are now considered to be financially self-sustaining,
i.e. covering operational costs by income after adjusting for financial costs and inflation. See Chapter 4.1
on Financial Inclusion for more detail.
Pr 4.3: Number of LIFT households accessing financial services
Since 2011, LIFT’s assistance to households through its microfinance partners, at both the financial and
17

institutional levels, has grown rapidly. By the end of June 2016, MFI partners were providing financial
services, primarily in the form of loans, to 991,995 clients, of whom 94 per cent were women. This is an
increase of nearly 57,500 clients since the end of 2015.
Table 7: Programme Outcome 5: Improved nutrition, sanitation and hygiene practices
Pr 5: Improved nutrition, sanitation and hygiene practices
Pr 5.1: Number of LIFT households reached with
nutritionally sensitive information (by sex of HH head)*
79,091
hhs
M 863 hhs
IP data
June 2016
F 78,228 hhs
Pr 5.2: Proportion of men and women in LIFT
households with awareness of nutritional needs of
women and children
N/A
M
3.9 per
cent HH survey
2015
F
22.8 per
cent
Pr 5.3: Number of children 6-23 months with
“acceptable” dietary diversity (by sex)
11,743
children
M N/A HH survey
2015F N/A
Pr 5.4: Number of infants (0-5 months of age) who
received only breast milk during the previous 24 hours
(by sex)
5,559
children
M N/A HH survey
2015F N/A
Pr 5.5: Number of LIFT households using an improved
sanitation facility (by sex of HH head)
202,503
hhs
M
157,654
hhs HH survey
2015
F 44,849 hhs
Pr 5.6: Number of LIFT households using protected
water sources (by sex of HH head)
215,523
hhs
M
170,312
hhs HH survey
2015
F 45,212 hhs
Pr 5.1: Number of LIFT households reached with nutritionally-sensitive information (by
sex of HH head)
From the start of LIFT’s programmes in 2010, 11 IPs report reaching nearly 80,000 households with
nutritionally-sensitive information, mostly through health and nutrition training sessions. It is assumed
that one participant represents one household. Nearly 99 per cent of the participants were women. In
the past six months, IPs report 947 households received MCCTs and approximately 13,000 households
participated in health and nutrition training sessions. The most active IPs in health and nutrition training
are IRC in the Tan Lan programme and HelpAge.
Pr 5.2: Proportion of men/women in LIFT households with awareness of nutritional needs
of women and children
In the LIFT 2015 household nutrition survey, the fathers and mothers within each household were
both asked a series of four questions on the nutritional needs of pregnant women and young children.
Answering three of the four questions correctly demonstrates awareness of nutritional needs, based
on the Food for Peace nutritional indicator developed by FANTA. In LIFT programme areas, and of the
sampled parents of children under five years of age, 4 per cent of fathers and 23 per cent of mothers had
correct knowledge of the nutritional needs of women and children. As these are baseline figures, it is
important to note the considerable knowledge gap between mothers and fathers.
Pr 5.3: Number of children 6-23 months with ‘acceptable’ dietary diversity (by sex)
In the LIFT 2015 Household Survey, 26 per cent of children aged 6-23 months in LIFT programme areas
had acceptable dietary diversity. When extrapolated to the estimated 45,167 children in this age group
in LIFT programme areas, nearly 12,000 children, as a baseline, are estimated to have acceptable dietary
diversity in LIFT programme areas. Sex disaggregation of these findings is not available at this time.
Pr 5.4: Number of infants (0-5 months of age) who received only breast milk during the
previous 24 hours (by sex)
In the LIFT 2015 Household Survey of programme areas, 48 per cent of infants were reported to have
been exclusively breastfed in the previous 24 hours. When extrapolated to the estimated 11,581 infants
18

in LIFT programme areas, 5,559 infants, as a baseline, are estimated to have been exclusively breast fed
in LIFT villages. Sex disaggregation of these findings is not available at this time.
Pr5.5:NumberofLIFThouseholdsusinganimprovedsanitationfacility(bysexofHHhead)
In the LIFT 2015 Household Survey, 70 per cent of households sampled in LIFT programme areas reported
usually using an improved sanitation facility. There was a moderate difference between female-headed
households at 74 per cent and male-headed households at 69 per cent. When extrapolated to LIFT
programme areas, a baseline of 202,503 households are estimated to use an improved sanitation facility.
Pr 5.6: Number of LIFT households using protected water source (by sex of HH head)
In the LIFT 2015 household survey, 74 per cent of households sampled in LIFT programme areas reported
that their main source of drinking water during the summer season was a protected water source. There
was no difference in the proportions of female and male-headed households. When extrapolated to LIFT
programme areas, a baseline of 215,523 households are estimated to use a protected water source.
Table 8: Programme Outcome 6: Safeguarded access to and sustainable use of natural resources
for smallholders and landless
Pr 6: Safeguarded access to and sustainable use of natural resources for smallholders and landless
Pr6.1:NumberofLIFTvillageswherecommonproperty
resource management is taken up (by type) N/A
Village
profiles
2015
Pr6.2:NumberofLIFThouseholdsbenefitting(directly/
indirectly) from protected/managed natural resources
(by type)
12,852 hhs HH survey
2015
Pr 6.1: Number of LIFT villages where common property resource management is taken up
(by type)
Of the 300 LIFT villages surveyed in the LIFT 2015 Household Survey, 102 or 34 per cent said they had
villagemanagementsystemsforcommunityforests,grazinglands,mangroves,wildfisheries,watersheds
and/or embankments. Of these 102 villages, 76 said they had received benefits from their managed
property resources. However, one village may have more than one resource management system and
further investigation is required. Therefore, it is not currently possible to extrapolate these findings to
LIFT’s new programme areas.
Pr 6.2: Number of LIFT households benefitting (directly/indirectly) from protected/
managed natural resources (by type)
In the LIFT 2015 Household Survey, households were asked if they benefited from any type of managed
or protected community resource. Of households in LIFT’s new programme areas, 5.1 per cent reported
benefitting from managed or protected forests. When extrapolated to LIFT’s new programme areas,
12,852 households are estimated to be benefitting from managed or protected forests, with a small
difference of female-headed households, 4.5 per cent, and male-headed households, 5.2 per cent.
Table 9: Programme Outcome 7: Strengthened local capacity of communities, local government,
CSOs and private enterprises to support and promote food and livelihood security
Pr 7: Strengthened local capacity of communities, local government, CSOs and private enterprises to
support and promote food and livelihood security
Pr 7.1: Percentage of LIFT funds managed by national
entities
35 per cent
FMO June
2016
Pr 7.2: Number and type of local groups and insti-
tutions supported to promote food and livelihood
security*
1,342 local groups FMO/IP
June 2016
Pr 7.3: Number and type of supported local groups and
institutions actively promoting food and livelihood
security
856 local groups
FMO/IP
June 2016
19

Pr 7.1: Percentage of funds managed by national entities
From January to June 2016, LIFT signed 14 new contracts, of which eight were directly with national
NGOs. Of the other five contracts signed in the first half of 2016 none included any national sub-IPs.
The 2016 projected budget to be managed by all national entities is nearly USD 22 million which is 35
per cent of LIFT’s 2016 projected programme expenditure of around USD 65 million. This is a substantial
increase from the 14 per cent in 2015, and is expected to increase considerably as more contracts are
signed with national entities in the second half of 2016.
Pr 7.2: Number and type of local groups and institutions supported to promote food and
livelihood security
Since the start of LIFT, 14 IPs report supporting 1,343 local groups and institutions to promote food and
livelihood security. These include a wide variety of groups such as village organisations, producer and
marketing groups, mother-to-mother support groups, and savings and loans groups. The IPs supporting
the largest number of local groups include IPs in the Tat Lan programme (431 groups), Save the Children
in the Bright SUN programme (262 groups) and ActionAid-SEDN (120 groups).
Pr 7.3: Number and type of supported local groups and institutions actively promoting
food and livelihood security
As of the end of June 2016, 12 IPs report that they are currently supporting 856 local groups and
institutions, all of which are actively promoting food and livelihoods security. The IPs reporting the
highest number of active local groups include Save the Children under Bright SUN with 262 groups, PATH
with 122 groups, and Mercy Corps with 98 groups.
Table 10: Programme Outcome 8: Generation of policy-relevant evidence regarding pro-poor
development
Pr 8: Generation of policy-relevant evidence regarding pro-poor development
Pr 8.1: Number of LIFT-supported policy oriented
events organised
43 events
FMO/IP
June 2016
Pr 8.2: Number of LIFT policy-oriented publications
published and disseminated to stakeholders 30 publications FMO/IP
June 2016
Pr 8.1: Number of LIFT-supported policy-oriented events organised
From January to June 2016, 11 IPs organised and conducted a total of 43 policy-oriented events.
At the national level, ILO organised four migration-related policy oriented events, including trainings
on laws and policies governing overseas migration for government officials and CSOs, and meetings
with project stakeholders and Members of Parliament (MP) on Labour Migration Management. UNESCAP
organised a policy dialogue in Nay Pyi Taw that two regional ministers of agriculture, the Permanent
Secretary of Ministry of Agriculture, Livestocks and Irrigation (MoALI), and two MPs participated in. PATH
helped organise three policy-oriented events, including their fortified rice launch in March in Yangon.
Under the Learning and Innovation programme the Food Working Group (FWG)conducted three events:
i) Improving fishery governance ‘Experiences of Delta’ knowledge sharing event, ii) Smallholder Inclusive
Growth Model, Module l, and iii) Smallholder Inclusive Growth Model, Module 2. Under the Strengthening
Civil Society programme, the Gender Equality Network (GEN) organised policy oriented events, including
a Prevention and Protection of Violence Against Women Law (PoVAW Law) Drafting Core Group Meeting,
and a meeting with Amyotha Hluttaw Women and Children Rights Committee in Nay Pyi Taw in May.
Pr 8.2: Number of LIFT policy-oriented publications published and disseminated to
stakeholders
From January to June 2016, LIFT and IPs published and disseminated 30 policy-oriented publications
to stakeholders. IP highlights include: four publications from GEN including a Commission on Status of
Women pamphlet for gender-based violence in IDP camps in Myanmar, a POVAW law brief and a full
report on CEDAW. HelpAge published several policy briefs on social protection and MSWRR and released
their advocacy strategy outline. The World Food Programme published 19 bulletins, Oxfam released an
advocacy strategy, and ILO published their Briefing Paper on Complaints Mechanisms for migration.
A detailed list of LIFT-commissioned publications can be found in Annex 4.
20

2.3 Activity monitoring
Table 11: Activity monitoring 2010-June 2016
Descriptions
Achievement2010
Achievement2011
Achievement2012
Achievement2013
Achievement2014
Achievement2015
AchievementJune
2016
Cumulative
achievementfrom
2010-June2016
Planned overall targets (without double counting of beneficiaries)
Total number of direct beneficiary HHs 153,808 69,421 149,299 138,977 116,922 193,668 44,515 866,610
No. of female - headed HHs - 3,691 16,940 19,733 14,637 42,511 2,579 100,091
No. of HHs with disabled persons - 1,064 2,354 3,111 1,508 1,580 457 10,074
Agricultural production (crops)
No. of HHs supported in agricultural
production
43,454 15,701 42,854 52,310 20,659 14,887 2,112 191,977
No. of HHs benefiting from market information
and linkages
- 3,324 21,523 3,177 10,691 4,064 38 42,817
Livestock production
No. HHs supported in livestock production 7,931 1,813 6,653 3,958 1,447 1,174 148 23,124
Fishery production
No. HHs supported in wild capture fishery 4,799 - 3,177 1,956 1,654 3,948 212 15,746
Other IGA (not agril/livestock/fishery)
No. HHs supported in other IGA 11,635 3,700 2,620 6,157 2,636 752 604 28,104
Revolving funds
No. HHs supported through revolving funds - 2,112 17,211 8,021 4,133 877 516 32,870
Training
No. participants trained in total 21,491 36,342 69,557 84,270 80,520 26,046 20,840 339,066
No. trained - agriculture related (including
livestock and aquaculture)
10,443 8,530 41,231 32,367 37,171 9,348 4,526 143,616
No. trained - other IGAs (not agri/livestock/fish) 6,293 1,143 1,759 2,719 1,572 1,860 7,487 22,833
No. trained - wild capture fishery related - - 195 121 283 2,504 1,727 4,830
No. agricultural/livesock/fishery extension
workers trained
3,801 56 1,422 6,921 3,018 2,143 58 17,419
No. trained in environmental protection/
conservation/rehabilitation
954 1,580 6,477 7,223 6,976 271 44 23,525
No. trained in skills to strengthen CBO
management
- 25,033 18,473 34,919 31,500 9,920 6,998 126,843
Cash for work (CfW)
No. person - days of CfW provided - 374,469 671,116 588,506 301,957 209,650 7,900 2,153,598
No. person - days of CfW provided for women - 164,191 246,821 269,937 120,281 125,730 4,352 931,312
Total number of HHs supported through CfW 33,493 31,410 43,227 38,488 74,598 20,103 599 241,918
Community Based Organisations (CBOs)
No. CBOs established or strengthened 1,682 1,785 2,924 2,998 1,644 640 2,627 14,300
Nutrition
No. of participants in MCCT (Mother and Child
Cash Transfer)
N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A 947 947
No. of participants trained in nutrition train-
ings/workshops (Community)
N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A 13,249 13,249
Migration
No. of participants trained in migration aware-
ness trainings/workshops
N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A 350 350
21

Descriptions
Achievement2010
Achievement2011
Achievement2012
Achievement2013
Achievement2014
Achievement2015
AchievementJune
2016
Cumulative
achievementfrom
2010-June2016
Water
No. of beneficiary HHs for drinking water N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A 969 969
Sanitation
No. of HHs with improved latrine N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A 300 300
22

24
3. Geographical programmes
Chapter three details the activities and progress across LIFT’s four programmes defined geographically
by agro-ecological zone. LIFT partners are implementing interventions across sectors, and with a
strengthened focus on sustainability, building resilience, and improving nutrition, in the Ayeyarwady
Delta, Rakhine State, the Uplands (inclusive of Chin, Kachin, Kayin and Shan States) and the central Dry
Zone (Magwe, Mandalay and Sagaing Regions).
This chapter reports on both existing interventions from the Learning and Innovation Window and new
projects from zone-specific calls for proposals. Most of these projects were launched in the second half
of 2015 and the beginning of 2016. Over the first half of 2016 a total of 63 projects were active in 118
townships and 13 of the 16 Regions and States. Projects funded under the financial inclusion, migration
and vocational training windows are also reported on.
Charts detailing important updates on each zone’s projects are available in Annex 1. Sector programmes,
including financial inclusion, private sector engagement, working civil society and the migration
programme, which all work across zones, are detailed in Chapter 4.
Geographic Areas
Each agro-ecological zone has its own
approach and focal areas (represented
by their zonal Theory of Change), all
contributing to broader LIFT outcomes
and LIFT strategy. Nutrition activities are
represented in three of the four geographic
programmes, while collaboration with
government and private sector has
increased and are now an integral part of
activities in all zones.
“
“

26
Projects for Delta 3 were contracted between December 2015 and April 2016. Programme launch
events have helped implementing partners identify how interventions will contribute to LIFT-level outcomes
and create learning and knowledge products that contribute to the new regional government’s development
efforts. Delta 3 will contribute to the revised LIFT strategy and to high-level outputs on increasing incomes,
improving resilience and nutrition, and work on pro-poor policy influence.
The Delta Programme
The context for development in the Ayeyarwady Delta
The Ayeyarwady River Delta is a major rice producing region, accounting for 26 per cent of national rice
production.2
The region has recovered much of its agricultural potential following the damage from
Cyclone Nargis in 2008, but significant work remains to reduce poverty, particularly among the landless.
The Delta region has a high poverty rate (26 per cent3
), high levels of malnutrition (stunting prevalence
is 26 per cent4
and wasting prevalence is 9.4 per cent)5
, and 66 per cent of the population are landless6
.
Despite a continued lack of sustainable, regular, local employment, changes are occurring that
demonstrate economic opportunities in a number of productive sectors. Parts of the agricultural sector
(milling and inputs suppliers especially), have seen increased investment, and development of small and
medium enterprises has expanded.
However,withamajorityofhouseholdslandlessandrelyingonsmall-scalefishing7
oragriculturallabour,
migration as a livelihoods coping strategy has increased significantly since 2011. Approximately 25 per
cent of households in Ayeyarwady Region have been affected by this migration boom, with landless
households more likely to have a migrant family member than landowners8
.
What LIFT is trying to achieve
The Delta 3 programme, LIFT’s third phase of activities in the region, defines four prioritised components,
framed by the programme-level theory of change. These are:
1. Strengthening the smallholder farmer position in the rice value chain (‘stepping up’)
2 Myanmar Rice Sector Development Strategy, May 2015
3 LIFT HHs survey 2013
4 Preliminary findings LIFT HH survey 2015
5 Undernutrition in Myanmar, Critical review, LEARN March 2016
6 Preliminary findings of LIFT HH survey 2015.
7 44.6 per cent of surveyed HHs in LIFT target area reported decreases in profit from fish/prawns/crabs/shellfish according to preliminary findings
of LIFT 2015 HH survey
8 A country on the move: Domestic Migration in Two Regions of Myanmar, 2016 WBG

27
2. Improving access to new economic opportunities: off-farm income generation, vocational training,
and support for migration (‘stepping out’)
3. Addressing vulnerabilities: social protection measures, improved nutrition, reduced indebtedness,
climate change adaptation (‘hanging in’)
4. Providing support to pro-poor policies and stakeholder coordination
LIFT intervention areas
The rice value chain
The Delta programme has a strong focus on the rice sector and has prioritised outputs around seeds,
advisory services, post-harvest management, farmers’ organisations and rural finance. The programme
assists farmers, especially smallholders with less than 10 acres (non-irrigated or 5 acres irrigated), to
increase profitability. Farmers are mostly rice-based and face rising labour costs and difficulties in
accessing on-time labour, especially between the monsoon and winter seasons9
. This presents a
challenge to achieving improved rice quality and value. Rice value chain efforts assist approximately
12,000 smallholder farmers directly across the three LIFT target townships, with a budget allocation of
approximately USD 4.6 million over three years.
Seed
The availability of high-quality paddy seed is well below farmers’ requirements and less than 10 per
cent of farmers use certified seeds10
. In order to rapidly increase the volume available, it is imperative to
revive and extend seed networks and to improve seed certification and marketing systems in a way that
is inclusive of government seed farms, farmer groups, and private seed companies11
. In Delta 3, LIFT’s
partners will build on their previous efforts to develop an improved and sustainable seed market.
During Delta 2, Radanar Ayar and GRET took initial steps to improve the seed market. The former worked
to improve registered seed production by farmers in close collaboration with Department of Agriculture
(DoA) and Department of Agriculture Research (DAR). The latter led the organisation of seed-growers into
Participatory Guarantee System (PGS) for quality assurance. Both were limited by sustainability, this
challenge was due to the lack of market and limited business orientation from both seed producers and
buyers12
.
During the monsoon and summer season 2015/2016, 35 seed growers supported by WHH/GRET produced
3,288 baskets (75 tons) of certified seeds of six different varieties. The seeds were laboratory tested, with
32 growers receiving certification for the PGS. All unqualified seed was sold within local villages as good-
quality seed. The certified seed was sold at township level, with 15 per cent higher prices than uncertified.
There are now 58 PGS seed growers across the LIFT partner-supported network.
The last seed production recorded had an average gross margin of 505,000MMK/acre and a net profit of
423,000 MMK/acre versus average values of monsoon paddy production gross margins of 245,000MMK/
acre. High quality seed production provides twice the gross margin as monsoon paddy and 2.7 times
summer paddy. However, seed production and PGS certification require stronger technical skills and an
increased workload that not all farmers can manage.
Table 12: PGS seed margins
Seed type
Yield/
acre
Price/
bsk
Income/
ac
Total
Cost
RACC
(gross
margin)
Total Cost
RAVC
(Net
Profit)
B/C
ratio
Average
PGS
56 11,471 654,353 148,454 505,899 230,940 423,413 4.8
9 68 per cent of farming HH used employed labour during 2014 monsoon cropping season, LIFT 2015 HH survey
10 Myanmar: Analysis of farm production economics, February 2016. World Bank Group
11 Myanmar Rice Sector Development Strategy
12 Pathways for developing the Seed Sector of Myanmar: Scoping Study, Centre of Development Innovation, Wageningen, January 2015

28
In April 2016 Radanar Ayar began scaling up its previous intervention working with 54 seed growers.
Their seed production efforts focus on both Certified and Registered Seeds in close collaboration with
DoA and DAR. On the supply side, for the 2016 monsoon season the programme has begun to produce
registered seeds on 4 acres for an estimated production of 200 baskets (estimated production of 50
baskets/acre). This can then be multiplied to reach 10,000 baskets of certified seeds13
. On the demand
side, the project has coordinated a meeting between agri-business company Shwe Zarchi Agro-CO and
the cooperative Ayeyar Aung Dagun Co-op. The meeting led to a contract farming agreement, with Shwe
Zarchi committing to procuring 3,000 baskets of certified seeds.
The LIFT-commissioned Seed Study in the Delta will be carried out during the last quarter of 2016
and will provide quantitative estimates of seed demand and supply in the region. It will also provide
recommendations for LIFT investment to improve seed sector performance in the Delta through an
integrated and sustainable approach. This study is both a key programmatic tool but also a broader
knowledge and policy engagement mechanism that will be used to drive engagement with other actors
in the agricultural development sector and with regional government.
Extension services
Extension services under Delta 2 focused on rice production and were NGO-provided direct services, not
designed to be sustainable beyond project duration. For Delta 3, LIFT has moved towards focusing on i)
safe and economic use of inputs (fertilisers and pesticides) ii) quality and post-harvest management of
crops and iii) a more sustainable approach that works through private and public advisory services.
In recent years WHH and GRET have applied various agricultural farmer-led extension methodologies
to the Delta region. These have included Farmer Field Schools, Farmer Experimental Groups (FEGs),
and the establishment of learning centres. Based on these previous projects, a joint WHH/GRET farmer-
led extension approach has been fine-tuned for Delta 3. In the first half of 2016, agricultural extension
services reached a total of 1,022 farmers across 63 villages in Bogale Township through demonstration
plots and learning centers. The first phase focused on soil fertility management and crop diversification.
At the same time, Mercy Corps is exploring possibilities to involve the private sector in extension services
by working with agribusiness companies to pilot innovative public private partnerships. The project has
established a partnership with Myanmar Awba utilising company extension services to deliver a more
appropriate and effective training package. The recipients of the training will be selected farmer groups
andwillhaveadedicatedAwbaextensionworkerwhoseservicesarenottiedtoAwbasalesorpromotions,
but to performance targets based on farmers’ harvest outputs and quality. During this reporting period,
a total of 374 farmers accessed private sector extension and agriculture services.
Farmer organisations
Farmers’ groups, associations, and cooperatives have a number of advantages as partners in rural
development. Over time, they can develop into interest groups that lobby on behalf of their members,
influencing relevant policy decisions at multiple levels. They also provide a wide range of services to their
members, and can facilitate provision of services to an even broader audience14
. The WHH/GRET and
Mercy Corps projects are all working with farmers groups formed during previous interventions and aim
to use lessons to establish new groups in Delta 315
.
WHH/GRET supports 70 producer organisations (POs) to deliver services along all points of the paddy
value chain (upstream and downstream) for smallholder farmers. These POs are helping smallholder
farmersdeveloplongtermaccesstoqualityandaffordableinputsandmachinery,appropriateknowledge
and technologies, improved post harvest facilities, stronger bargaining power, and profitable market
opportunities. During the reporting period, 23 old and 6 new POs provided services to 2,029 members
along the paddy value chain. These services included collective purchase of inputs on credit, paddy
purchase storage and selling, and paddy storage and saving through revolving funds.
13 It is assumed that for each basket of registered seeds, average of 50 baskets of certified seeds can be produced.
14 LIFT Study on Extension and advisory Services (EAS), May 2015
15 LIFT 2015 HHs survey data for the Delta recorded 89,9 per cent of farmers belonging to a Farmer Organisation and 3.9 per cent of household with a mem-
ber of a producer group that is financially active, 7.7 per cent of HH belonging from a livestock producer group and zero per cent from an aquaculture groups in
the Delta.

29
Mercy Corps further supports 100 Farmers Producer Enterprises (FEPs) that operate as sustainable
market actors, delivering services to their members and generating growth for member enterprises.
For an FEP to develop into a strong market-oriented actor envisaged by the project, it proved essential
to clearly define its role and ensure its members understood both its structure and its goals. Materials
and information were compiled and FPE operational guidelines have been completed that describe the
various FPE member services. There are nine categories of services that will be recommended to FPEs as
possible, but it is not envisioned that all FPEs will offer all services within the project timeframe.
A total of 312 members have received services from FPEs over the reporting period. Four millers and
three traders signed contracts for 656 baskets of certified seed on credit and paddy sales to 15 FPEs for
the monsoon season 2016. A requirement of the contract farming approach is that FPEs have adequate
facilities to store their paddy after harvest until they are able sell when prices are high: currently there
are 27 FPEs storing paddy, or who can store paddy following the 2016 monsoon harvest. The total current
paddy storage level of these FPEs is 13,700 baskets corresponding to approximately 287 metric tons.
During the reporting period, three FPEs were registered as cooperatives with the Ministry of Cooperatives
(MOC). All three have already received MOC financing (MMK 8,190,000, MMK 5,418,000, and MMK
4,680,000, respectively). The project is positioned to assist nine additional FPEs to register with the MOC
in the coming months.
Improving access to new off-farm economic opportunities
Thiscomponenttargetslandlessandpoorhouseholds,supportingimprovedaccesstonewopportunities
either with better local employment or through migration.
Several Delta IPs contribute to this programme component with diversified interventions targeting
directly 9,500 landless households in the three LIFT target townships with a budget allocation of
approximately USD 7.5 million.
Migration & training
A Mercy Corps/Swisscontact project supports the rural landless to develop occupations with commercial
potential locally, and access better paid employment opportunities in Yangon. It focuses on supporting
occupational skills that are verifiable and meaningful, resulting in real employment and occupational
outcomes. Five priority occupations were identified as most appropriate, and curricula and training plans
for each were developed by Swisscontact. The five occupations are: mechanical, carpentry, masonry,
garment manufacturing, and hospitality.
Most of the trainings will start in the second half of 2016. Mechanics, carpentry and masonry training
will be conducted in Labutta with locally recruited trainers who will participate in training-of-trainers
courses. In an effort to facilitate linkages between trainees and local market actors, the project team is
working with Myaungmya-based farm equipment companies to develop two possible initiatives. One
involves connecting the dealers with graduates of project mechanics courses. The equipment dealers
already have mechanics located in villages and the newly trained mechanics would provide a human
resource allowing the companies to expand. A second possible initiative involves developing a role for
Agent Mechanics that can facilitate farm equipment hire purchase models to FPEs.
The Garment and Hospitality trainings are provided by the SwissContact partners Myanmar Garment
Manufacturers Association and the Hotel Training Initiative. The courses include an initial module on
business and life skills in Labutta followed by technical trainings in Yangon. 49 female participants
have already received Myanmar Garment Manufacturing Association (MGMA) training at their centre in
Yangon. MGMA made efforts to place all participants into employment following the course, but 20 of
the graduates preferred to immediately return home to Labutta. For the remaining 29 who received job
offers, only 6 accepted them and the others decided to to find garment factory jobs on their own. At the
time of reporting project staff are following up to learn the reasons behind this unexpected result.
The IOM project Migration as Livelihood Diversification Strategy in the Delta (MILDAS), is intended to
serve as a pilot to test ways that LIFT can address migration in meaningful and relevant ways. MILDAS

30
will implement various activities encouraging people in Delta townships to position migration in the
context of strategic livelihood planning. It will work to help migrants realize the best-case scenarios while
providing necessary attention to the negative potential consequences of migration. In addition to direct
support to target townships, the project also proposes to support LIFT stakeholders more broadly in an
effort to deepen understanding on the nexus of migration and development.
In the first half of 2016 MILDAS introduced project partners and stakeholders to the project and identified
local partners for safety/benefits-from-migration training. A consultation workshop was organised with
the broad participation of the local CSOs, LIFT IPs, religious organisation and township Labour Exchange
Offices (LEOs).
Local off-farm livelihoods
The WHH/GRET project targets village/township based livelihood activities focusing on making the
best use of households’ limited resources and empowering beneficiaries with sustainable livelihoods
improvements. Landless and vulnerable households are assisted with transfer of technical knowledge,
business management and vocational training, advisory services, and facilitated access to credit. During
the reporting period, the consortium made a field assessment of small off-farm businesses supported
by previous projects to identify lessons and best practices. Twenty-one ‘small business types’ were
identified based on specific criteria such as capital, capacity, effort, income, risk, manageability, and
seasonality.
Management Advice for Family Farmers (MAFF) advisory services help users find their own solutions and
facilitate decision-making to both improve existing activities and to develop new ones. Currently there
are 24 advisory staff, 46 MAFF facilitators, and 219 MAFF members across 83 villages.
In 2009, WHH-supported villages set up revolving funds from the money used to pay the project back
for inputs. These Village Revolving Funds (VRFs) count among previous projects’ most successful and
sustainable results and are presently in 50 villages. In 2016, a total of 1,719 persons (582 farmers and
1,137 landless) benefitted from loans. Farmers used these loans to purchase farm inputs (72 per cent) and
to hire/repair machinery (14 per cent), while for the landless, most loans were spent on animal husbandry
(58 per cent), followed by trading activities (17 per cent) and fishery equipment (12 per cent).
Financial inclusion
LIFT funds two microfinance partners, the IFC and UNCDF through Delta 3. The latter, through its
Microlead project, is working to promote savings-led financial services in rural areas. It has partnered
with Association of Asian Confederation of Credit Unions (ACCU) to promote financial access among poor
households through a cooperative approach. The project has taken advantage of local saving practices,
‘su jay’, among rural communities and organised them into Savings and Credit Cooperatives (SCC).
By June 2016, the project had formed 32 SCCs with accumulated savings of USD 280,469 from 12,897
members (51 per cent women) in Ayeyarwady and Bago Region. From the savings, the SCCs had a loan
portfolio of USD 324,970 to 57 per cent of members. Forty-one per cent of total members are from the
Delta, with the remaining participants from Bago Region.
IFC’s East Asia and Pacific Advisory Services is implementing the Myanmar Microfinance Development
Programme focusing on sector-level support and institutional level support. The project has supported
capacity building for microfinance staff working at PGMF, Proximity Finance, Vision Fund, and Fullerton
to improve procedures, firm-level policies, practices and standards. In Delta region, these four MFIs have
disbursed USD 73.16 million in loans to 275,234 households from 25 townships. Of the recipients, 70 per
cent utilised their loans for agricultural activities and 91 per cent of direct beneficiaries are female.
Aquaculture
Fish farming (aquaculture) is important to Myanmar’s food security at a national level and the sector is
rapidly developing. Fish is the leading source of animal protein and a lead provider of micronutrients,
important especially for child development. It is also important in household food budgets nearly as
much is spent on fish (14 per cent of food expenditure) as on rice (19 per cent of food expenditure)16
.
LIFT approved funding for a WorldFish project to develop small-scale aquaculture in the Delta and the
16 Aquaculture in transition: value chain transformation, fish and food security in Myanmar, Michigan State University (MSU), the Centre for Economic and
Social Development (CESD) and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)- FEED THE FUTURE USAID,

31
Dry Zone under the Learning and Innovation Window. In 2016, seven aquaculture systems have been
selected for testing under different salinities in the Delta and under various water availabilities in the
Dry Zone. In the search for ways to engage smallholders, WorldFish is developing a new avenue for fish
farming: irrigation channels. Known in Myanmar language as ‘chan myaung’, these channels crisscross
the Ayeyarwady Delta, mainly to provide irrigation water.
A total of 540 aquaculture farmers from 71 villages have been selected, organised into 30 groups, and
provided with the necessary equipment to start Small Scale Aquaculture activities with the support of
WorldFish’s partners, NAG, GRET, and PACT. To provide the required seed fish, the project established
a breeding programme for climbing perch (anabus testudineus) at a Department of Fisheries-owned
hatchery in February 2016, the first time these have been grown in Myanmar. In July 2016, catfish
and snakehead seed fish will also begin being produced. Over 500,000 climbing perch eggs have been
produced and are being distributed to channel owners and pond farmers starting in early June. During
the reporting period, a total of 188 farmers from 28 villages in Delta were able to stock their ponds with
fish.
Addressing vulnerabilities
The Delta 3 programme is ensuring that partners invest time to understand vulnerabilities across their
project and in target villages—and demonstrate how each project reduces those vulnerabilities.
Nutrition
The Delta 3 programme works to address the immediate causes of stunting, including inadequate food
intake and disease at the individual level17
, as well as some of the underlying drivers such as awareness
of the associated risks, knowledge of prevention methods, and resource allocation to improve dietary
practices especially during key life stages18
. Work to address nutrition vulnerability targets approximately
25,000 direct beneficiaries in the three LIFT target townships with a budget allocation of approximately
USD 4 million. The main components of the nutrition plan include MCCT for pregnant and lactating
mothers with children below two years, nutrition awareness campaigns, and Social Behaviour
Change Communication (SBCC) activities focusing on the 1000-days window of opportunity. Fathers,
grandparents, village leaders, and health staff will also be targeted with nutrition-related information
and activities19
.
The Save the Children project in Labutta Township works with government health systems and a 3MDG-
funded project across 200 villages. It will deliver maternal cash transfers and behaviour change activities
to an estimated 10,000 pregnant and breastfeeding women and their children under age two. The project
also tests the feasibility of delivering services sustainably through Ministry of Health structures.
In 2016, the design of SBCC component has been finalised with inputs from Ministry of Health (MOH)and
3MDG. Two hundred and ninty-two SBCC sessions were conducted on Infant and Young Child Feeding
(IYCF), ante natal care and post natal care, and WASH health seeking behaviours, with 1,568 targeted
mothers. The MCCT model has been modified with establishment of MCCT-Focal Groups to replace Village
Health Committees. These 3-4 member Focal Groups are often composed of people already engaged
with health sector such as Community Health Workers (CHW), Auxilliary Midwives (AMWs), and village
authorities. Fifty five per cent of MCCT-Focal Group members are female. The MCCTs in January-June
2016 reached 1,104 new pregnant or lactating women with 3-4 months of payments.
Other implementing partners’ nutrition interventions include WHH’s project to reach approximately
10,000householdsin118villagesinBogaleTownshipwithawarenesscampaignsonappropriatenutrition
practices. They will directly target 900 households in 45 villages with interventions based on lessons
from a previous EU-funded project piloting Link Agriculture Natural Resource Management and Nutrition
(LANN) methodology in the Delta20
. These activities have begun in 27 villages with the participation of
1,425 people to date.
The WorldFish-led consortium aquaculture project also includes a nutrition behaviour change
communication component and has an explicit objective of increasing dietary diversity. Training
manuals have been developed with LEARN support and visits to target villages have been conducted to
17 The diets of infants 6 to 11 months of age in the Delta Zone are extremely poor. In fact, almost no children in this age group have an adequately diverse diet
(IDDS 2.5) and prevalence of diarrhea is 15 per cent (Under nutrition in Myanmar, LEARN, March 2016).
18 Prevalence of Exclusive Breast-Feeding of Children Under Six Months of Age 41 per cent, with only 20 per cent of children between 6 and 24 months with
minimum acceptable diet (MAD) and 17.5 per cent of mothers with acceptable dietary diversity score. Preliminary findings of 2015 LIFT HH survey.
19 10.1 per cent of men and women have awareness on of the Nutritional Needs of Women and Children. Preliminary findings of LIFT 2015 HHs survey.
20 LANN is a community-based innovative approach to improve the nutritional status of vulnerable communities by linking agriculture, natural resource man-
agement and nutrition in remote areas where there is limited access to public health services.

32
better understand cultural attitudes on nutrition knowledge; access to nutrition education; potential of
fish culture to contribute to nutrition; women’s perception and experience feeding fish to their children.
World Vision’s project will equip health providers to engage communities through education,
demonstrations, growth monitoring, and promotion of good nutrition for children under five. During the
first half of 2016, the project conducted training on IYCF for 37 village health workers, and to 470 women
with children under five years.
Social protection
Several partners in the Delta propose social protection mechanisms through saving and revolving funds.
In 2016, WHH’s project introduced two different savings models within VRFs:
• Social Saving builds up a village emergency health fund where loans are disbursed without interest
for short term health emergencies. These savings enter to the health fund and will not be paid out to
the members. Fourteen villages started these funds.
• Special Saving is an option for villagers to save money through temporary contributions to the VRF.
They receive interest on their contributions, with the rules defined individually by the VDCs.
Eighteen villages started these funds.
World Vision Myanmar promotes Village Saving and Loans Associations (VSLAs) based on its 15-year
experience supporting over 180 groups in five townships. VSLAs are widely appreciated by community
membersandactassocialprotectionmechanismsbyincreasinghouseholds’resiliencethroughaccessto
emergency money from the ‘social funds’ and use of small loans for education and health expenditures.
By June 2016, 15 new VSLAs had been formed with a total of 218 members (77 per cent women).
In Delta 3, Mercy Corps, WHH and GRET have been collaborating on resilience as a crosscutting theme.
The first stage of this collaboration was to conduct the Strategic Resilience Assessment (STRESS), led by
Mercy Corps and carried out during November-January in three IP target townships. The purpose of this
assessment was to evaluate the potential for households and communities in the Delta region to learn,
cope, adapt, and transform in the face of shocks and stresses, and ultimately achieve improved well-
being outcomes.
The organisations are applying STRESS findings as the basis for their approach to resilience. They are
also working to develop a Recurrent Monitoring Tool for use during periods between baseline and end
line surveys to track an illustrative number of communities and thus better understand how Delta 3
interventions may be changing the way households and communities learn, cope, and adapt.
Value for money in Delta 3
Delta 3 projects were assessed by the following VfM considerations:
• Their contribution to Delta 3 Programme framework and its HLOs
• Relevant expertise of the applicants
• Previous experience in the target area and possibilities to scale up successful previous results
• Quality of design and scope
• Where available, value for money findings from previous project evaluations were also considered
The Delta 3 call for proposals did not require IPs to make specific VfM calculations, or to demonstrate
alternative approaches. Before contracting, changes were negotiated to ensure work plan, ToC and
measurement frameworks and budget were aligned to allow value for money assessment; and that
sufficient budget was allocated to M&E project component.
VfM calculations and consideration will be made annually by comparing reported expenditure with work
effort, progress, outreaches and achieved benefits. VfM consideration will also be provided on a semi-
annual basis from information and data analysis provided by IPs’ reports. The newly developed narrative
report template provides sufficient space for VfM considerations and the new M&E monitoring track sheet
will enable outreach calculations.
Field monitoring visits will supervise and assess implementation progress and identify issues that do not
align with VfM principles.

33
LOOKING AHEAD
&
SUSTAINABILITY
Delta
LIFT’s Delta Programme is working towards increased coordination and knowledge sharing with regional
government, private sector, and CSOs as part of LIFT’s overall sustainability effort. Coordination with
regional and township governments has been established through the different project launches and
Delta team events and the new regional government has requested LIFT support for its pilot initiative
on land redistribution/allocation. This has opened up an opportunity for dialogue, collaboration and
endorsement of LIFT Delta programme from relevant government departments and local MPs.
Coordination among the different Delta IPs is facilitated by LIFT’s Programme Coordinator based in
Bogale township. Cross-learning initiatives have been organised between IPs to exchange technical
approaches and methodologies (for example the local NGO LEAD visited WHH and WVM project to learn
from their successful experiences with VSLAs).
More systematic learning events will be organised through the Community of Practice (CoP) events
starting from September and structured around the main thematic learning questions for the Delta
Programme: the first thematic CoPs for 2016 will be focus on the rice value chain and nutrition.

35
The Dry Zone Programme began operations at the end of 2015 and six of seven component projects are now
being implemented. The programme’s overall objective is to achieve sustainable results that help farmers, businesses,
and government departments to continue working with, and for, communities with increased levels of experience and
knowledge.
The Dry Zone Programme
The context for development in the Dry Zone
Low birth weight and stunting of children has repeatedly been identified as a severe nutritional
challenge across the Dry Zone. In the Dry Zone 31.2 per cent of children are stunted and 36.6 per cent
have low birth weight21
. The availability of nutritional food for mothers and children and the provision
of knowledge to overcome cultural and societal nutrition taboos have been identified as the key areas of
need. Mothers lack knowledge about good nutrition during pregnancy and how to feed babies and small
children following birth. The LIFT Household Survey found that in the Dry Zone more than 90 per cent
of respondents wash their hands before and after eating, but only 43.9 per cent wash their hands before
feeding a baby.
Interconnected with nutritional issues are water and education in hygiene and sanitation. Only 58 per
cent of Dry Zone households have access to improved water sources22
and only 3 per cent have access
to safe piped water23
. Zero per cent open defecation is the overall goal of the WASH component over the
programme lifecycle, down from the 13.8 per cent measured in the 2015 Household Survey.
In the agricultural sector, LIFT has found that farmers and livestock holders have no access to quality
advisory services at the village level, no access to seed markets for high value crops relevant to the Dry
Zone, and no easy access to machine rental services that allow them to respond quickly to weather
challenges presented by the Dry Zone climate. The percentage of farmers using fertilisers is higher
than the percentage of farmers using improved seeds or plant protection products24
, and fertiliser use
is heavily skewed towards urea. Farmers are only using 26 per cent of the Department of Agricultural
Research (DAR) recommended levels of potassium and 27 per cent of phosphorus.25
21 A Nutrition and Food Security Assessment of the Dry Zone of Myanmar in June and July 2013, Save the Children, WFP and MALI, 2014. The
22 snapshots mentioned below have also identified stunting at alarming high levels of over 30 per cent in both regions
23 Magwe Region, A snapshot of child wellbeing, UNICEF 2014. Mandalay Region, A snapshot of child wellbeing, UNICEF 2014
24 UNICEF/WHO Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and Sanitation (JMP), 2014
25 LIFT/WB study on farm economics and IFDC own studies

36
Access to finance for paddy production has improved in recent years26
, but for other crops the amounts
availablefromexistinggovernmentfinancialinstitutions(MMK20,000peracreforbeansandpulses)isstill
much too little to meet farmers’ needs. Livestock farmers lack knowledge of good livestock management
practice and face constraints related to the livestock trade (the system of slaughter licenses, for example,
requires farmers sell only to the licence holders, rather than allowing a broker system), while veterinary
services at the village level are limited by restrictive rules on community animal health workers.
Communities have existing social protection schemes that are small scale (e.g. funeral funds) and work
on demand from the poorest households. However, these systems are neither robust nor flexible enough
to effectively reduce vulnerabilities in the community. There is no system of regular cash transfers for
elderly people or other vulnerable groups, and pregnant women (or those with young children) receive
no financial support to assist with their additional nutrition and health care needs.
The 2016 LIFT-funded World Bank migration study ‘A Country on the Move – Domestic Migration in
Two Regions of Myanmar’ highlighted the Dry Zone’s labour migration trend. The Magway region has
experienced high levels of migration in recent years, especially since the economic transition began in
2011 and one in five households in Magway has a family member migrating for work. Migrants from the
Dry Zone tend to be young, male, and have migrated to access improved income streams.
Designed for sustainability
The Dry Zone Programme began operations at the end of 2015 and six of seven component projects are
now being implemented. The programme’s overall objective is to achieve sustainable results that help
farmers, businesses, and government departments to continue working with and for communities with
increased levels of experience and knowledge. The programme’s three main areas for intervention are:
1. working to increase agricultural and livestock production
2. improving social cohesion within communities
3. reducing stunting through improved nutrition of pregnant women and children up to two years of
age
The Dry Zone Programme has been designed with a focus on sustainability. LIFT has identified
government services, the private sector, and local CSOs as the three main drivers of sustainability and
will ensure its work supports and enables them. Contrary to projects and programmes delivered from
the outside, these institutions are run and managed locally in independent organisational structures as
ongoing services or interventions with no time limit. As a result, they are targeted as the key stakeholders
for the Dry Zone Programme and each implementing partner has set out who they will engage with and
how to build sustainable capacity.
What LIFT is working to achieve
In order to achieve sustainable change in LIFT’s three intervention areas (determined based on the
challenges above), LIFT will work through government, through the private sector, and through civil
society. Following the 2015 election, there is a particular need to work closely with government, and LIFT
requires its implementing partners to maintain and continue existing relationships LIFT has established,
and to develop strong working partnerships with township and regional authorities.
Working with government
LIFT’s cooperation with the Government in the Dry Zone occurs at two levels. At the Union level, LIFT
works to influence policies on nutrition, livestock trade, veterinary rules and regulations, and social
protection through projects with HelpAge, the FAO and Save the Children. HelpAge has a senior technical
advisor supporting the DSW in all questions concerning aging and social protection in general. Together
they have piloted a MCCT project in two townships, testing the working relationship of the DSW and GAD
to deliver cash transfers. The FAO is engaging with the Livestock and Veterinary Department to reduce
the negative impact of the restrictive slaughter license system and some veterinary rules (e.g. only
trained veterinary staff can provide injections, preventing village para-vets from vaccinating livestock).
The second level of interaction with government is local, where LIFT cooperates with authorities to
select villages, plan, and implement activities. LIFT partners are consistently working to enable township
authorities to deliver the services that communities are entitled to and expect. All projects have
capacity building interventions for government staff. For example, IFDC connects agricultural extension
26 Myanmar Fertiliser Policy Evaluation, IFDC for USAID, 2014

LIFT Semi Annual Report 2016 Highlights Rural Progress

LIFT Semi Annual Report 2016 Highlights Rural Progress

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