Presentation by Gerard McCarthy (Postdoctoral Fellow at Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore) for the ICTD's virtual roundtable on "Covid-19 and the Informal Economy: Responses, Relief, and Research"

1. Covid-19 in Myanmar:
Impacts & Pathways Forward
Dr. Gerard McCarthy, Asia Research Institute
National University of Singapore
International Centre for Tax and Development Roundtable, 16 April 2020
Twitter: gerardtmccarthy/https://nus.academia.edu/GerardMcCarthy

2. Informal economy hit before virus
 Informal economy is estimated at vast majority of Myanmar’s economy (pop. 53m)
 Covid impacts on informal economy arrived before the virus took off
 A/o 16 April: 85 confirmed cases, 4 deaths in Myanmar
 From mid-March:
 Thai garment sector shutdown prompted massive cross-border migration (300k+
returned; but millions more in Thailand w/o formal protections)
 Disproportionate number of women
 Viewed as potential vectors of disease
 Little focus on their role in remittances – especially to rural households (recipients of
>70% of remittances; 70% of population).
 Huge internal migration (esp garment sector workers – mostly women)
 Villages in rural Irrawaddy Delta reporting 7/10 families w/ garment sector links now
returning indefinitely
 Spike in unemployment; closure of micro, small and medium businesses
 60% households lost employment, 40% of micro/small businesses shuttered
(Source ONOW survey April 2-5: https://bit.ly/2Rj9WWI)

3. Current policy response
 Heavily health, population control focused
 Gov is procuring PPE, expanding testing and treatment capacity
 Already weak health system
 50,000 people in quarantine as of 13th April
 Lockdowns of major cities (Yangon, Mandalay)
 Economic measures heavily formal sector focused
 Central Bank has lowered interest rates
 $35M fund to provide 1% loans for formal sector businesses
 Promise of income and personal tax remissions
 Limited social protection action for informal economy
 10 day ration packs dispersed to ‘most vulnerable’
 Budget derived from Ministry of Relief, Resettlement and Social Welfare (historically one of the least funded ministries)
 No mention yet of expanding limited apparatus of direct cash transfers (Maternal, Elderly)

4. Informal economy hit; yet key to response
 Businesses (esp MSMEs), community organisations, monasteries, churches playing major
role in food and aid support to those even more vulnerable
 Non-state actors integrated into local government responses
 Many CBOs running community quarantine centres; case-tracing
 Involvement of business-people and CBOs on local Covid committees
 Government response already relies on community/business contributions
 Gov gives returning workers 7 days rations; yet quarantines for 21 days
 Systematic reliance on community donations, charities, religious institutions
 Reinforcing an insecure welfare regime/state role (but this could change!)
 Clear need for more robust state response
 Expanding social protection/direct cash payments
 Extending in-kind aid where supply chains disrupted
 Public works investment (Myanmar has a major infrastructure backlog)
 But what kind interventions are necessary where?
 How to implement and track their impact?

5. 1. Social research critical to informing
Covid response
 Different context from developed countries where public narrative, policy debate is
strongly testing metrics focused (ie as numbers of infections drop, lockdowns ease)
 Myanmar’s weak health system capacity means spread or impact of lockdown hard to track
via testing
 So, how to inform decision-making about response while reducing impacts on informal
sector?
 Pandemics (eg Ebola) often see worsening burden on most vulnerable and informal households
 How to provide basis for advocacy around broadening social protections?
 How to measure consequences of cash transfers, other payments initiatives?
 How to track the politics of welfare, informal tax – state and non-state?
 Fine-grained data, tracking impacts is central to informing policy
 Multiwave tracking data can help inform interventions
 Quantitative data must be coupled with idea of mechanisms, processes (qual interviews)

6. 2. How to do responsible Covid research
 Face to face interviews risky, inadvisable
 How to contact respondents/build semi-representative samples – esp of informal economy?
 Option 1: Phone interviews
 Do partner orgs have existing phone data-base? How representative is it?
 Option 2: Google Surveys
 JPAL in Indonesia tracking employment, food, migration, services,
 500 households weekly recruited through Google advertising
 https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1dUC1DZ_c1_cFJslERp-K5nnhnCK_9qy1
 Not available in all countries (inc Myanmar)
 Option 3: Online Surveys
 Formalised structure
 Challenge is gathering a sample
 Option 4: Chatbots (w/ interviews)

7. 2. How to do responsible Covid research?
 Conversational Artificial Intelligence (ChatBots) w/ qualitative methods
 Capacity to solicit basic information via Facebook Messenger function
 Can also be used to disburse information (eg. Links to Covid-19 resources)
 Being used by WHO and partners in Covid-19 basic diagnosis and public edu
 Potential in Myanmar
 Highly digitally connected (80% smartphone penetration – but geographically concentrated)
 Great for rapid survey (eg. 1000 completion in 2 days for <$500 across six cities)
 Needs to be simple: multi-options=low response rate
 Can gather data from geographically concentrated area (regions; down to 1 mile)
 Not representative – but possibility for snowballing to more vulnerable
 Mixed-method project possibilities (keen for collaboration)
1. Rapid national snapshots weekly (broken-down regionally)
2. MSMEs/Informal Sector Study
3. Household ‘Covid Governance Diaries of the Poor’