In 2025 inter-agency AAP will be further strengthened in Myanmar by building on key advances made in 2024. To collectively handle and analyse community perceptions, feedback and complaints, the Community Voices Platform was initiated in 2024 to aggregate feedback to influence decision-making in the HCT, in the effort to lead to response adjustment and course correction. To further advance communication between communities and humanitarian actors in 2025, plans are in place to form an inter-agency feedback mechanism on the basis of the Community Voices Platform, pending funds being secured. The AAP/Community Engagement (CE) Working Group, composed of diverse local, national and international organizations, will work together to raise affected people’s awareness about their rights and how to exercise them by using community-based organizations as a means to communicate essential information. Structured efforts will be undertaken to map and analyse information flows in the country, alongside an assessment on the barriers and opportunities for greater collaboration between key stakeholders in Myanmar. The group will also further expand online AAP training using a dedicated module on misinformation management.
Disability inclusion
In 2024, significant developments were made towards disability responsive programming under the guidance of the Technical Advisory Group (TAG) on Disability Inclusion. Nearly half of the TAG members are from local organizations of persons with disabilities (OPDs), and since April the TAG has been co-chaired by a local OPD and international NGO. In 2024, the TAG worked closely with the Myanmar Humanitarian Fund to mobilize funding for disability mainstreaming and participated in designing the Allocation Strategy.
For the 2025 HNRP, consultations were held with 35 representatives from 21 OPDs, encompassing a diverse range of disabilities. These consultations were conducted in local language and utilized sign language interpretation. This allowed participants to share experiences and identify key priorities. The TAG also collaborated with the Needs Monitoring and Analysis Working Group to improve the disability-disaggregated data collection for the MSNA to further strengthen the HNRP.
In 2025, the TAG will collaborate with the ICCG on the following priorities:
Empowerment: Support local OPDs to reach those most in need and provide platforms for coordination and advocacy.
Advocacy: Strengthen coordinated messaging with cluster partners, donors and external stakeholders.
Technical support: Provide guidance to humanitarian actors, the Myanmar Humanitarian Fund, clusters and the HCT on disability integration into mainstream response.
Gender
Within the humanitarian and protection crisis in Myanmar, widespread abuses affect women, men, girls and boys differently, with women suffering the most due to pre-existing structural gender and social inequalities, discrimination, and patterns of GBV. Women and girls constitute 10.4 million of the estimated 19.9 million people in need in Myanmar in 2025. Escalating violence has led to new displacement, disrupted access to essential services, especially health care for pregnant and lactating women, and limited livelihood opportunities for both men and women, pushing people towards negative coping mechanisms. The expanding conflict has heightened concerns about GBV, livelihoods, human trafficking and illegal migration among young women and men, as well as unsafe movement of young girls and women seeking refuge to safer locations.
Severe diarrhoea and cholera outbreaks, compounded by recurrent flooding, have disproportionately affected women, girls, people with disabilities, and stateless populations. These crises exacerbate vulnerabilities by displacing communities, reducing their access to sanitation and health care, and increasing risks of GBV and sexual abuse and exploitation in overcrowded or unsafe living conditions. Local organizations, especially women-led civil society organizations, have demonstrated resilience by finding innovative ways to assist the unreached and deliver despite their limited capacity, safety risks and funding constraints.
The Gender in Humanitarian Action Working Group is a coordination platform to promote the integration of gender considerations and gendered technical expertise in humanitarian action across the humanitarian response areas of operation and foster greater coordination and consideration of gender through humanitarian action mechanisms. In 2025, it will continue to ensure and advocate for the humanitarian commitments on gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls through strengthened localization. The 2025 HNRP will also contribute to the implementation of the HCT Gender Commitments in Myanmar.
Protection mainstreaming
Humanitarian partners remain fully dedicated to mainstreaming protection across the entire humanitarian response in Myanmar. Through the incorporation of protection principles into aid delivery, humanitarian actors in Myanmar can ensure that their activities target the most vulnerable, and enhance their safety and dignity, and to not contribute to or perpetuate discrimination, abuse, violence, neglect, and exploitation.
The Protection Cluster, together with the areas of responsibilities (AoRs), will ensure that protection remains central to the humanitarian response in Myanmar as articulated in the Protection Cluster strategy. The Protection Cluster and partners will ensure that other clusters are provided with the necessary support to ensure meaningful access, safety, and dignity in humanitarian services. The Cluster will invest in enhancing protection mainstreaming including through developing tools and providing trainings to protection and non-protection partners across clusters. All initiatives will espouse the key principles, including to prioritize safety and dignity, avoid causing harm, contribute to meaningful access, promote accountability and encourage participation and empowerment.
Protection from sexual exploitation and abuse
Myanmar is a high-risk country for sexual exploitation and abuse,1 primarily due to the ongoing humanitarian crisis, with large numbers of vulnerable people in close proximity to armed actors and in need of aid. In response to the alarming risks, a PSEA programme was initiated in Myanmar in 2019 with the establishment of a PSEA Inter-Agency Network that works to address the needs of affected communities. The Network operates at both national and sub-national levels and is comprised of UN agencies, international NGOs and local NGOs.
PSEA Network members are actively conducting PSEA training and awareness-raising efforts, with plans to further mainstream PSEA across clusters, AoRs and thematic working groups. The Network’s 2024 Action Plan included an inter-agency sexual exploitation and abuse risk assessment to inform the PSEA Strategy and the Action Plan for 2025-2026. Additionally, planning is in place to train selected personnel from international NGOs and local organizations on sexual exploitation and abuse internal administrative investigations in late 2024. To strengthen PSEA efforts in 2025, securing funding is critical to conduct sexual exploitation and abuse risk assessment follow-up workshops, build the capacity of the aid community, raise PSEA awareness among vulnerable populations to ensure safe and accessible channels to report sexual exploitation and abuse, and recruit a national PSEA Coordinator.
In 2025, the HCT in Myanmar will work towards the integration and institutionalization of PSEA into humanitarian agencies’ emergency response. This commitment will encompass critical areas such as allocation of funding specifically for PSEA dedicated staff, sexual exploitation and abuse prevention, risk mitigation and response measures, and monitoring on progress.
References
IASC Sexual Exploitation and Abuse Risk Overview Index, 2024