Written by the SecDev Foundation
The Myanmar military’s March 2021 coup and subsequent crackdown spawned headlines around the world focused on street protests, civil disobedience, ethnic tensions, and the subsequent armed resistance and refugee crises. The coup erased years of social, political and economic progress. Lost amongst these many setbacks was a small but significant erasing of progress in an area seldom in the headlines: public policy research.
The short-lived democratic period in Myanmar had seen a rapid blossoming of independent-minded researchers and policy institutes. International donors had supported these institutes as a key foundation of democratic and effective governance. Amongst these donors, Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC) launched a five-year, $10.7 million (Canadian) project to support independent policy research institutes. Called “Knowledge for Democracy Myanmar” (K4DM), the project’s first phase ran from 2016 to the end of 2021.
The March 2021 coup upended the policy institutes supported by K4DM and other donors. Most closed their doors, with many of the researchers leaving Myanmar for safety and opportunity overseas. In K4DM’s final year, the project needed to find a way to support a continued role and presence for policy research in Myanmar. But given the increased risk facing any sort of field research, and its link in the eyes of the military to the resistance, the opposition or the previous democratic regime, what form could research take in post-coup Myanmar? What meaning could ‘policy research’ have in the face of a regime not open to any critique or outside voices?
A new approach for K4DM was necessary. One of the first initiatives in this new direction was support for a research project focused on youth and digital culture in the aftermath of the coup, which was published as “Cyberspace and freedom of expression in post-coup Myanmar.” The research was organized by The SecDev Foundation and an international NGO active in Myanmar. The field research was carried out by a team of four young women who held online and in-person interviews and focus group discussions in several regions of the country. The NGO and the research team worked anonymously, given the heightened risk brought on by the military’s repression of the media, protest and civil disobedience.
K4DM Phase II: Reviving research post-coup
The SecDev Foundation, a Canadian non-profit, had recently begun a digital safety and digital citizenship education project in Myanmar. After the military coup, this work shifted entirely toward digital security support for the peaceful resistance, including many civil society organizations and media groups.
The initial research collaboration between IDRC and the SecDev Foundation (SDF) shed light on the importance of digital risk, digital threats and the role that researchers could play in bringing these issues to an audience of international donors, major internet companies, and the effort toward a resistance government structure that became the National Unity Government (NUG). Policy research in Myanmar could still find an audience beyond its ruling regime.
From this starting premise, a new second phase of K4DM (2022-26) has supported The SecDev Foundation to fund a series of research projects by Myanmar researchers, focused on digital issues and the intersection of the digital and “IRL” (In Real Life) issues of democratic governance, peaceful resistance, gender equality and freedom of expression.
The project, entitled “Digital social research and training in a safe cyber environment for Myanmar,” has seen SDF develop and implement a model for “safe social research” in a conflict zone, allowing Myanmar scholars to continue important policy-focused research at a time when their community and beneficiaries face a direct existential threat from the military and its supporters.
Myanmar researchers can make valuable policy contributions focused on the actions of the resistance movement, international organizations and corporate actors like the leading social media platforms. But activists, journalists and scholars are among those doxed and targeted by the military and its supporters, as our research has documented (see below). Researchers undertaking field studies in conflict zones need to carefully consider the risks of exposing themselves and research participants to doxing and other digital and physical threats.
Prioritizing safety in the field
To ensure that research projects funded under K4DM II maintain the digital and physical safety of our researchers and their subjects, the SecDev Foundation working with DigiSec Lab, a Myanmar partner organization, devised a “risk assessment mitigation plan (RAMP)” process that initiated and guided all funded research papers.
The DigiSec Lab RAMP sessions with our 26 research teams, undertaken before field research commenced, have helped the researchers mitigate digital and physical risks in their work. The initial RAMP sessions establish a checklist of mitigations or ‘safety steps’ to follow. Monthly follow-up sessions help to maintain the process and ensure mitigations are being implemented. The DigiSec Lab team is now undertaking evaluation research including surveying all 26 research teams to get feedback on the value of the approach.
A total of 83 Myanmar researchers and research assistants have reported improved digital safety knowledge and practice as a result of this project. These researchers have interacted with hundreds of research participants and beneficiaries. To date, no safety incidents have been reported during the research projects. The RAMP process is repeatable, transferable and adaptable to a range of research and social projects across Myanmar and other conflict areas. It points to a model of donor funding that follows ‘do no harm’ principles from their inception, rather than the unfortunately more common approach of donors scrambling to include security and risk concerns after project initiation.
Exploring online education
Many of the 26 funded research projects are now published on www.k4dm.ca. One of the first themes that Myanmar researchers sought to address in the post-coup era was the rise of online education—given its importance to a country where many were refusing to participate in the military regime’s education system. The goal of providing an online education alternative at the secondary and tertiary levels was challenged by a host of difficulties, including internet accessibility, affordability, digital literacy skills and a host of digital risks.
The papers “Education gap online” (Myanmar Data Tech Team), “Access to digital education” (Gathering House) and “Chin State’s e-learning crossroads” (TheHills) all look at challenges in providing alternative, online higher education in Myanmar. Disparities in access are driven by a wide variety of factors—from gender norms and security concerns, to electricity and internet availability. Common recommendations coming from the three papers include the need for donors and online education providers to consider the importance of stable power and internet access, financial support for learners (particularly those from disadvantaged rural and ethnic minority areas), and mental health support for learners and practitioners, as well as the need for donors to support accreditation efforts to ensure international recognition for education course participants/graduates.
In “Unlocked and exposed,” researchers Nyan-Na, Maung Lwan-Wai and Hsay Sann focus on digital security concerns and how they impact the quality of online classroom communication. Student-teacher interactions online are already limited in comparison with traditional classroom environments. With military surveillance and oppression as constant concerns for tertiary-level students online, the authors argue that online courses must be built from a ‘security first’ perspective, and that funding for online schools and programs must recognize this need. Security measures are essential for the safety of all the stakeholders in online education institutions. To ensure the quality and integrity of the online classroom experience, special teacher training is required, and the digital literacy and digital safety competence of both teachers and students needs to be enhanced before any classroom interactions begin. More financial assistance is needed to establish these starting points.
Unpacking gender dynamics
Gender in the context of post-coup resistance was a theme of great importance to Myanmar researchers responding to the project’s proposal calls – particularly the rise of technology-assisted gender-based violence (GBV online). While almost all of the 26 funded research papers consider gender dynamics as a component of their studies, at least five papers focused entirely on gender issues.
“Crisis under the coup” by Myanmar Women in Media exposes the extent of threats and harassment faced by women journalists at Myanmar’s independent media houses. The research showed the strong need for donors funding media houses to address these issues—including insisting on reporting and support mechanisms, security and harassment policies, and related training, as foundations of their media support projects.
The overall gendered impact of the military coup and resulting civil conflict are addressed by four papers in the series. “Militarized masculinity” by Kyal Sin Thukha and Zin Mar Phyo explores discourses and behaviors that reinforce discriminative social norms and traditional cultural and social images of ‘being a man’ or a woman. Militarized masculinity is found to be deeply embedded in the online and offline narratives of the resistance forces (PDFs), both through the absence of gender-inclusion efforts in their daily narratives and behaviors, and in serious acts of threats, doxing, sexism and gender discrimination. The study highlights significant gaps and the need for accountability by the National Unity Government (NUG), PDFs and other stakeholders in the Spring Revolution, to participate in shifting from negative to positive gender narratives and in deconstructing discriminative social norms.
“Not your body, not your business” (Maung Lwan-Wai, Bhone Maung, Yin Maung and Zee Pe) looks at the troubling rise of non-consensual online pornography in Myanmar. This global issue is exacerbated in Myanmar as doxing and revenge are prominent within the civil strife. The research finds that civil society actions against non-consensual pornography are not as developed as needed, given limited attention to the issue and a deeply ingrained culture of victim blaming. The authors argue that the issue is fundamental to the struggle for human rights and women’s rights, and should be addressed as such by donors, beyond seeing it as merely a privacy issue or a ‘lack of digital literacy and security knowledge.’
In “Debunking myths,” the authors Hsu Myat Yadanar Thein, Than Tun and Yay Chann look at the positive impact of social media in creating momentum toward rejecting social norms and promoting an environment where survivors can speak out and gain support to address gender-based violence. In looking at the online response (comments and post shares) to three instances of gender-based violence, the authors point to a series of positive messages that can be the starting point for further social initiatives. Specifically, they call for donors and civil society actors to consider victim-centred support systems, public awareness and education initiatives, legal accountability and enforcement, community-led reporting mechanisms, better data collection and transparency, and concerted efforts to reform social and cultural norms.
A fifth paper under the gender theme, soon to be published, will examine the prevalence and impact of cyberbullying and online harassment faced by LGBTQ individuals in Myanmar.
Examining digital repression
As a series strongly oriented toward online issues, digital repression including misinformation and hate speech are addressed by six papers. Most of these will be published within the months of May to July 2025, and two are already released. The first, “Policing mobile money” (Bradley, Gar and Vox) looks at the military regime’s effort to fight the resistance via financial repression—controlling banks and scrutinizing money transfers to freeze accounts and limit support for the resistance.
The second, “Dangerous channels” (Intellectum Research), looks at the patterns of misinformation and hate speech that threaten Myanmar’s digital and sociopolitical landscape. It focuses on the spread of mis/disinformation and “malinformation” on pro-regime Telegram channels in Myanmar after the 2021 coup. Among its many important findings: from a sample of 2,500 Telegram posts, 202 cases of doxing were identified, leading to 16 documented arrests. Women were targeted more frequently than men, a finding that supports the conclusions of our authors looking at gender issues. Moreover, the danger of doxing reinforces our concern for the safety of researchers undertaking both online and offline research in Myanmar. Policy research remains an important area of support for international donors concerned with human rights and democratic development in Myanmar. But any new donor-funded efforts here must deliberately prioritize the safety and well-being of Myanmar researchers, their informants and other stakeholders.
Taken together, the series of 26 papers emerging from this component of the K4DM II initiative highlights the important policy contributions Myanmar researchers continue to make, even if their own government is no longer the ‘target’ or actor intended for the research recommendations. International donors, civil society groups, major corporations, and regional and international multilateral organizations pondering how to respond to the Myanmar crisis should be looking to learn from researchers still intimately involved in understanding the needs of Myanmar’s diverse peoples.
