The Livelihoods and Food Security Fund (LIFT) is a multi-donor fund set up in 2009. LIFT aims to strengthen the resilience and sustainable livelihoods of poor households by helping people to reach their full economic potential. This is achieved through increasing incomes, improving the nutrition of women and children, and decreasing vulnerabilities to shocks, stresses and adverse trends.
LIFT is a significant actor in Myanmar’s development. To date, over 14.5 million people in 82 per cent of Myanmar’s townships have benefitted from LIFT’s programmes. From January 2019, LIFT has been guided by a new five-year strategy that puts ‘leaving no one behind’ at the centre and will in particular focus on social inclusion and cohesion, increased support to areas affected by conflict, bringing displaced people into LIFT’s development programmes and working with Government at all levels on targeted policies that achieve gains in these areas.
LIFT has received funding from altogether 16 international donors since it was established. The current donors are the UK, the European Union, Switzerland, Australia, the United States of America, Canada, New Zealand, Norway and Ireland. For more details, visit www.lift-fund.org.
Rural to urban migration is rapidly increasing in Myanmar, with many unemployed and under-employed people moving to seek new jobs in cities. These internal migration flows have resulted in a dramatic increase in the population of Yangon’s peri-urban industrial zones and have had a particular impact on the livelihoods of women due to the highly feminised nature of employment in garment factories. However, poor wages and working conditions, combined with barriers to accessing nutritious food, safe and affordable housing and adequate water, sanitation and hygiene facilities, frequently result in negative outcomes for migrant workers.
The LIFT Peri-Urban Programme has been developed as a three-year multi-disciplinary intervention to respond to these intersecting and intractable development challenges, with a view to migrants who are “stepping out” of the agricultural sector to seek improved livelihoods in urban areas. By ameliorating the conditions that lead to labour exploitation and poor health and nutritional outcomes, the programme will address the key barriers preventing migrant households from climbing out of poverty and reaching their full potential.
The overall goal of the programme is improved nutritional status, increased household income and assets and reduced vulnerability to exploitation for women and men migrants in the peri-urban areas of Yangon. The programme will achieve this goal through three component outcomes:
-
Expanding access to information, services and peer support for women and men migrants;
-
Increasing opportunities for decent work for women and men migrants; and
-
Improving nutrition and water, sanitation and hygiene conditions, particularly for mothers and children.
A Programme Management Officer is needed to promote active coordination among implementing partners and key stakeholders for the Peri-Urban Programme, working in close cooperation with LIFT’s Decent Work and Labour Mobility and Nutrition programme teams. For more information on the Peri-Urban Programme, visit https://www.lift-fund.org/en/lift-peri-urban-programme-framework-2020