1Civil society, especially via NGOs, has great potential to bring about social, economic and political changes in Myanmar. All interviewed NGO representatives believe that NGOs can change the political system, in time and appropriate strategies. Since their inception, they have been exploring ways to set up a more just system. They started at the local level, with small initiatives and have tried to replicate it at higher levels, more or less fruitfully. The NGO phenomenon boomed during the last decade and the number of new NGOs is growing. However, their ability to work constructively together in the long run remains hypothetical. It appears that NGOs are embroiled in the same ethnic and religious divisions as the rest of the society, and they can even exacerbate those divisions. Being primarily led by leaders from minority groups, a main concern for them to play a political role is the issue of representation in terms of the society as a whole. Besides, the disunity among NGOs is obvious. The absence of common positions previously allowed them to progress in an authoritarian context but when it comes to sustainable political change, the variation in their mandates, methodologies, and areas of intervention, could become a significant hindrance to NGOs craving a wider role in Myanmar political space.

2Due to the political sensitivities, assessing NGOs’ long term agendas remains a delicate task. NGOs are taking constant risks to test the limits of the repressive system and their main strategy to protect themselves is to avoid direct confrontation with the authorities and also limit information sharing with their peers. Silence is golden and actions are preferred to words. Overall, NGO agendas largely depend on the results of ad hoc experimentation. Nonetheless, some trends can be identified. The formal faith-based organisations are reportedly sometimes involved in religious conversion especially in poor and remote areas. Other NGOs with a strong ethnic component can have nationalist aims, advocating for a greater autonomy for their people. If most of the NGOs are avoiding the state on the one hand, while coping with public service shortages on the other hand, few are those who define themselves as part of the political actors.

3To a certain extent, NGOs, when substituting the non-existing state services (creating less public pressure on the regime for service delivery) and it could be hypothesized that they prolong the regime’s rule. The recent shift towards a parliamentary democracy with elected civilians makes a distinct categorisation of NGOs more and more complex due to the greater connections between stakeholders. The lines drawn between politics and social work are increasingly blurry. Over time, changes in the nature of governance could facilitate a shift in NGOs’ underlying relations to power. This could also help to weaken traditional hierarchies. Some NGOs have already started to build bridges with members of the parliament, thus further reducing the gap between them and the governing bodies. A major stake for NGOs will be to reject the temptation to reproduce an authoritarian system. Furthermore, the obvious absence of unity among the NGOs, their limited scope and their own identities are as many challenges.

4Myanmar civil society is fundamentally structured around a number of individuals and groups belonging to the NGO sector, which strategized to promote ideas on behalf of people’s interests. When compared to the messages of other members of civil society, such as religious leaders or businessman, the NGOs’ messages are more clearly articulated for the international audience. The whole civil society is traditionally characterised by a great heterogeneity and a lack of consistency that is equally deeply rooted in the NGOs’ identities. NGOs as well as other civil society actors are interpreted by political economists as a key “driver for change” in the country. They use negotiated spaces at the margins of government power to conduct their projects, gain authority and recognition. Often the assumption is made by international actors, such as state agencies, donors, and international organisations that Myanmar NGOs are neutral, or worse, that they embody the hopes of a fully-fledged democracy, battling in the frontline against the “evil regime”. As NGO agendas remain generally unmentioned, they are largely ignored by their main international supporters. Nonetheless, there is an emerging tendency of international actors to support an increased politicisation of NGOs to emulate a softer, pragmatic and consensus-oriented opposition than the traditional one. For example, the social welfare projects led by the NLD gathered interest from some foreign governments. Meanwhile some NGOs were preoccupied by the too palpable mix between politics and social work instead of their traditional desire to demonstrate their harmlessness to the government. The increased availability of funds, due to the acknowledgement by a number of donors of promising signs of opening, leads to greater competition between NGOs. NGOs now embrace new Western centred topics such as gender and disability. International donors, collaborators or supporters of Myanmar NGOs should realise and acknowledge possible bias and adopt, before it is too late, a Do No Harm approach155 in order to avoid privileging ethnic and religious minorities over the rest of the society, favouring one dimension in the myriad of conflict sensitivities. In addition, given that the diversity of civil society’s praises is today being sang by the same actors, they should be cautious to avoid repeating errors made in other countries in the region and support local models instead of importing readymade, Western oriented, development models that have proven to be inefficient.

5The emerging Myanmar civil society and NGOs, with few exceptions, still generally display an apolitical appearance. Yet, over time, some aim to help produce capable leaders and strengthen local governance structures, either by engaging with the state or with non-state actors. The role of the youth has to be highlighted. New active generations, generally not involved in armed struggle, tend to have less resentment than the elders to the state and demonstrate more openness to consensus-building. They could be called upon to play a role in the future political landscape. It remains to be seen if NGOs are actually working in the direction of a power shared system. In spite of the values they promote, NGOs in some ways continue to rely on the current stable and rigid political regime. If political constraints were abruptly removed, their opposition role would be seriously destabilised as they are somehow dependant on the status-quo maintained by the current regime. As much as they are comfortable working around a deficient system, their ability to establish an efficient one today remains to be demonstrated. Nonetheless, in the more likely event of a progressive transition, NGOs might increasingly influence local politics and potentially gain expertise to influence higher levels in the government. Greater coherence among them would be strategic for NGOs to weigh in the new decision making processes.

6Myanmar NGOs’ creativity and capacity to adapt to challenges doesn’t need to be proven anymore. The latest trend among the NGOs is to federate various actors, generally alien to the NGO sector, who enjoy charisma, visibility and economic influence to get their messages heard. The recent collaborations with Buddhist monks’ networks during the Cyclone Nargis relief operations are also signs of a more mature understanding by NGOs of the need to evolve and to move beyond the traditional ethnic, religious and political lines that have been sustaining the rhetoric of conflict for decades. But will they be able to cement such a diverse society where coercive methods used by the Army for half a century haven’t succeeded?