Women Matter: Our Lives, Our Voices and the Decisions We Make for Our Development

Women Matter: Our Lives, Our Voices and the Decisions We Make for Our Development

What are the existing conditions of ethnic rural women in two villages in the downstream area of the proposed Mong Ton Dam project in relation to men in their day-to-day life? How do women control and get access to resources at home, in the community and the country? What would be the implications for them if the large-scale dam is built?

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Mapping Gaps And Opportunities For Inclusive Hydropower Governance In Myanmar

Mapping Gaps And Opportunities For Inclusive Hydropower Governance In Myanmar

By Peter, MK31 Fellow

The political transition in present-day Myanmar has brought forward tremendous economic, social, and environmental change and an associated expansion in challenges and opportunities: accelerating capital investment, intensifying resource use and extraction, and heightened conflict partly due to non-inclusive development model.

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Turning Points in the Life of a Young Social Worker and Researcher Along the Thanlwin River

Turning Points in the Life of a Young Social Worker and Researcher Along the Thanlwin River

By Nang Shining, MK31 Fellow

In this blog, Nang Shining presents the perspective of a youth researcher who is working with her in her participatory action research-designed fellowship project on women’s engagement and their role in water governance particularly at the proposed Mong Ton hydropower project in Shan State, Myanmar. Nang Shining highlights both some of the initial findings of the field work, and also the lessons learned by the researcher herself.

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While Optimistic About the Nu River’s Future, Chinese Women Environmentalists Also Face Government Clampdown

While Optimistic About the Nu River’s Future, Chinese Women Environmentalists Also Face Government Clampdown

By Hannah, MK31 Fellow

Chinese politics and civil society can seem both complex and difficult to understand for outsiders. However, my curiosity to better understand what is happening in the world’s rising superpower led me to choose women’s civil society in China as the focus for my fellowship research on water governance on the Salween River (known as the Nu or Nujiang in China).

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Local Voices Still to Be Heard In Wan Hsala Village, Shan State

Local Voices Still to Be Heard In Wan Hsala Village, Shan State

By Hnin Wut Yee, MK31 Fellow

Wan Hsala is a secluded village along the Wan Hsala Stream housing a little over 30 households with a total population of approximately 100. As one of the small villages along the Salween River in the Eastern Shan state, the majority of its villagers are part of the Shan ethnic minority, while a few are ethnic Lisu and Bamar. Today, these villagers are facing actual and potential negative impacts from a hydropower construction project started about a decade ago. The local villager's limited knowledge of their rights and their lack of participation in the project have caused them to be taken advantage of. It is crucial that a solid framework of national and international standards reinforced with a strict enforcement vehicle is in place before any further project decisions are made.

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