Myanmar Country Environmental Analysis

Abstract

Poverty is more concentrated in rural, natural-resource dependent areas of Myanmar. An updated poverty assessment in 2017 concluded that the headcount poverty level is 32.1 percent in 2015, declining from 48.2 percent in 2004/05 (World Bank 2017a). This means that about one-third (or 16.98 million people) of the current estimated population of 52.89 million are poor. Around 10 percent are food poor. Poverty is significantly higher in rural areas (38.8 percent of population), compared to urban areas, where it is now around 14.5 percent and is declining more rapidly. About 35 percent of Myanmar's population is rural. This means that 87 percent of all poor are in rural areas, compared to 13 percent in urban areas.Poverty is more prevalent and severe in the hilly, mountainous, and coastal agroecological zones of Myanmar, compared with the Delta and Dry Zone (Figure 2). There is also a strong correlation at the township level between forest cover and deprivation as measured by the World Bank Group's Multidimensional Index (MDI) 4 (see Figures 3 and 4).