Without USAID, Myanmar Is Struggling to Recover From Its Massive Earthquake

Chris Milligan arrived in Myanmar in 2012 with a mandate: Help repair diplomatic relations with the southeast Asian country by reopening its United States Agency for International Development (USAID) mission.  By that point, Milligan had worked for the USAID for more than two decades—a tenure that included working on reconstruction in Baghdad following the Iraq War and coordinating the recovery response to Haiti’s devastating 2010 earthquake. His Myanmar assignment posed a similarly significant challenge: After decades spent under brutal military rule, the country was in the midst of trying to transition to democracy. Reopening the USAID mission in Myanmar, at the American embassy in the city of Yangon, was meant to facilitate that process by helping “reestablish [Myanmar’s] capacity to feed its people and to care for its sick, and educate its children, and build its democratic institutions,” former President Barack Obama said during his 2012 visit to the… ...[TheTopNews] Read More.