Posted on 16 December 2025
Author: Dr Sharon Bell
Myanmar's military junta is preparing to hold elections at the end this year, seeking national and international legitimacy after its February 2021 coup overturned the National League for Democracy's landslide 2020 victory. These elections are widely recognised inside and outside Myanmar a sham and will intensify instability and violence, as the military seeks to suppress any opposition.
Myanmar suffers a polycrisis - social and political upheaval following the coup, intensified armed conflict, economic collapse, climate shocks, earthquake recovery, and a humanitarian catastrophe with 3.6 million people displaced and 20 million needing assistance. The military continues to commit grave human rights abuses, including deliberate attacks on civilians sheltering in temples and schools, and recently bombing a hospital, killing more than 30.
And yet: on the ground, partnerships built on solidarity continue to provide hope and practical models for Myanmar’s post-coup future.
New Zealand maintains ties to Myanmar through diaspora communities spanning generations, resettled former refugees, international non-governmental organisations (INGOs) implementing programmes with Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade funding, development practitioners working through civil society organisations, opposition MPs calling out the junta's illegitimacy, and people working with organisations devoted to sustainable peace.
COVID-19 travel restrictions and the coup forced practitioners to confront what partnership really means in fragile, conflict, and violence-affected contexts. Aspirational talk of locally led development had to quickly become a reality if work was going to continue when international staff could not travel, formal government systems collapsed, and conflict intensified. What survived was work led by local organisations, partnerships characterised by genuine trust and power sharing, and programmes that operated within ethnic governance systems.
Let me offer examples of work with Aotearoa New Zealand connections established before the coup that illustrate these principles in practice (some of the organisations are anonymised for safety reasons).
Earth Mission addresses the critical health workforce shortage in Myanmar by training local leaders to be Physician Assistants in Kayin State's conflict zones. This approach advances health justice: providing healthcare access through community-led care in conflict zones where formal government systems will not or cannot reach.
Communities in conflict-affected areas can access lifesaving care in jungle clinics, care that would otherwise require trekking up to three days. Women can access safer childbirth where Earth Mission is the only caesarean section provider in the region, treating high-risk pregnancies that without this care could result in maternal or infant death. Physician Assistants perform lifesaving surgery in these clinics, often treating conflict injuries as military planes fly overhead to bomb communities. When conflict threatens a location, clinics relocate to safety.
Earth Mission works within ethnic governance systems that have operated for decades, replacing Myanmar's absent state systems in conflict-affected areas. These systems have delivered health and education long before the coup. Physician Assistants receive recognised qualifications from the Karen Education and Culture Department and work with the Karen Department of Health to strengthen these existing systems. Earth Mission does not create its own separate structures but works within and is accountable to Karen governance.
This partnership offers a practical model for Myanmar's post-coup future: healthcare delivery rooted in legitimate local governance, accountable to communities, and sustainable precisely because it never depended on state systems.
In the words of E.F. Schumacher, “small is beautiful”. This second example is a very small civil society organisation that works with families in an informal settlement in Yangon. It provides much-needed education and healthcare support for children and families in a community that formal systems have failed. It may not always have the rigorous reporting that international donors require but it works because it is embedded in the community and experiences the same challenges. It responds quickly to needs without layers of approvals.
The organisation navigated COVID-19 alongside families and continued its work when the coup happened. This was not because it had sophisticated contingency plans but because it practises genuine solidarity, sharing the same risks, experiencing the same shocks, and staying when things get difficult. When operating contexts shift dramatically, as they have in Myanmar, this approach often proves more adaptive and sustainable than more visible interventions by larger international organisations.
A third example is an ethnic faith-based women's association in Yangon, supported by a NZ INGO. This organisation has worked alongside women in Myanmar since 1858. It is responding to crises exacerbated by the coup with programmes to protect communities from modern slavery, as criminal scam centres proliferate across Myanmar. It provides trauma-informed survivor care, referral pathways, and reintegration support. A key aspect is livelihoods support through enterprise and small-scale agricultural development including for internally displaced women.
This partnership exemplifies good partnership principles: deep trust in a local organisation, long-term relational commitment, and flexibility in a shifting context. Staff at this women-led organisation live Myanmar's difficult conditions as many have children who have fled conscription. As conflict reshapes communities and men flee conscription, they work alongside women consolidating leadership roles, strengthening capabilities in decision-making, enterprise, and governance.
What can we learn from these examples for Myanmar's hopeful post-coup future? These partnerships embody connection, justice, and solidarity, not as abstract values but as practical operating principles. They have survived Myanmar's extremely difficult conditions because they are built on genuine connection: to ethnic governance systems that have delivered services for decades and remain critical for Myanmar’s future, to communities in informal settlements, to women in leadership. They advance different forms of justice: health justice in conflict zones, educational justice for families in informal settlements, gender justice for women. They model solidarity by sharing risks rather than managing them from distance. They demonstrate locally led development in practice through trust-based relationships and genuine power sharing. New Zealand can continue showing solidarity with Myanmar by supporting locally led partnerships like these that offer hope while unequivocally rejecting the military's sham elections.