In early May 2008, the devastating cyclone Nargis hit Burma and her already vulnerable population. Many lives were taken and many more were forever changed by the loss of family members, friends, houses, and livelihoods.
Despite heroic relief eff orts by fellow Burmese inside and outside the country and off ers of extensive international humanitarian assistance, many cyclone survivor sadly have not received the support that any human being in a crisis should be entitled to. We hope that this report will contribute to the understanding of the situation in Burma after Nargis and in turn to thorough considerations by international donors on how to best reach those in need.

The idea of compiling this report was born out of a workshop organized by the project Another Development for Burma in August-September 2008.
In this workshop, representatives from civil society organizataions based in Burma’s border areas came together to discuss the role of international financial institutions in Burma, both in general and in the Post-Nargis Joint Assessment process. When studying the PONJA report, the participants realized that it failed to describe the obstructions of aid and human rights abuses committed by the Burmese military regime in the areas aff ected by the cyclone, even though they and their networks inside the country had witnessed many cases of
such obstruction and abuses throughout the relief phase.

Therefore, as independent civil society organizations working on issues
such as democratic change, promotion of human rights, humanitarian aid, community empowerment, health, environment, and education, we felt the need to tell the other side of the post-Nargis story by producing this report.
Throughout the drafting process, consultation was conducted among the
undersigned groups and the political bodies National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma, Ethnic Nationalities Council, and the National Council of the Union of Burma.

We are sincerely grateful to Yuki Akimoto, Burma Information
Network (BurmaInfo) for authoring and editing this report, and to all
the organizations that shared information and provided input for this
report, including the Human Rights Education Institute of Burma and
the Emergency Assistance Team – Burma. We also would like to thank
the Another Development for Burma project, the Dag Hammarskjöld
Foundation, the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Myanmar Caucus, and
the Burma Partnership for assistance and support in the production and
launching of this report.