By TONY WATERS 24 June 2019
(Reposted from The Irrawaddy of Yangon, Myanmar)
Yangon’s INGOs are full of consultancy reports which offer “professional” opinions about conditions in Myanmar. NGOs, INGOS, and UN agencies investigate transitions regarding democracy, environment, federalism, ethnicity and, of course, gender. These are the subjects that donors are interested in—and thus willing to pay consultant companies tens of thousands of dollars to “research.” This is largely because evidence-based research provides a basis for what well-funded development projects promise their home governments, all on the assumption that the Myanmar people have a “will” to transition from what is bad, to what is good.…