ABSTRACT
International assistance to underdeveloped countries expanded considerably in the twentieth century, with key growth points occurring during World War I, World War II and the aftermath of the Cold War (Barnett 2011). By the end of the century, global engagement divided into two main categories, long-term development aid and short-term humanitarian assistance, with many agencies operating in specific spheres. Burma was underdeveloped at independence in 1948 and has remained so ever since. In 70 years as a sovereign state, however, the country has experienced an uneven pattern of global aid, while typically maintaining a neutralist foreign policy stance (Johnston 1963; Liang 1990). In the fragile democratic period from 1948 to 1962, marked by civil war and an 18-month authoritarian interlude in 1958–60, external engagement was increasingly important, though also questioned because of its impact on the neutralist stance. In those years, aid mostly took the form of official development assistance (ODA) deployed on a government-to-government basis, and grants and loans disbursed by international financial institutions (IFIs) such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. Following the 1962 military coup, a policy of extreme isolation curtailed most forms of aid. Gradual re-engagement with the wider world in the 1970s and 1980s was then halted when the 1988 democracy movement was crushed by a military junta. During the 1990s, global aid remained negligible. Since the mid-2000s, by contrast, there has been significant growth in foreign assistance, spurred by the humanitarian disaster of Cyclone Nargis in 2008, and by political reform in the 2010s. This chapter first surveys the historical context and then focuses on the current transitional period. It looks at multilateral engagement, mostly through the United Nations (UN) but also through the European Union (EU) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), at bilateral engagement led by Japan and featuring other major donors such as Britain and the United States (US), and at engagement undertaken by major international non-governmental organizations (INGOs).
