1 Introduction M yanmar is navigating a period of compounding pressures. Prolonged conflict, macroeconomic instability and recurrent natural hazards have disrupted livelihoods, fragmented markets and strained service delivery across much of the country, with the March 2025 earthquake adding further strain to an already fragile environment. In this context, understanding how poverty and deprivation are evolving, and where they are most concentrated, is essential for informing humanitarian response, recovery efforts and longer-term development programming. Conventional monetary poverty measures have become increasingly difficult to apply in Myanmar’s current crisis environment. Rapid and uneven inflation, widening spatial price differences, and disrupted labour markets have reduced the comparability of income and expenditure data across locations. At the same time, updated consumption-based poverty estimates require detailed household expenditure modules that cannot be implemented through rapid telephone surveys. Myanmar’s most recent comprehensive consumption-based poverty estimate dates to the 2017 Myanmar Living Conditions Survey,1 conducted under fundamentally different macroeconomic and security conditions. In the absence of more recent large-scale consumption data, monetary poverty analysis increasingly relies on assumptions and models that may not fully capture rapidly changing realities in areas affected by displacement, conflict and market disruption. Even where income data are available, they do not fully capture household well-being during protracted crises. Households may experience disruptions in education, healthcare, water, sanitation and housing even when their reported incomes remain above a monetary poverty threshold. These non-monetary deprivations can significantly affect well-being, resilience and recovery prospects, particularly where service systems are fragmented or infrastructure has deteriorated. Monetary poverty measures whether households have sufficient income Monetary poverty measures whether households or consumption to meet basic needs, can meet basic needs, while multidimensional while multidimensional poverty captures poverty captures overlapping deprivations in overlapping deprivations across essential aspects of well-being such as areas such as education, health and living education, health and living standards. standards. In Myanmar’s crisis context, the two In crisis settings, such as Myanmar, do not always align. these dimensions do not always move together. Households may retain some income while losing access to services, education or adequate living conditions, while others may experience low incomes without severe non-monetary deprivation. The analysis therefore aims to provide a more timely and comprehensive evidence base for understanding poverty in Myanmar’s current crisis context and for informing more differentiated, context-sensitive responses. 1 6 CSO, UNDP and World Bank (2017). Myanmar Living Conditions Survey 2017: Key Indicators Report. LAYERS OF DEP RIVATION : Mu ltid im e n s io n a l Pov er t y i n M y a n m a r