1 Introduction A country emerging from the “deep freeze” of totalitarian control with weak institutions cannot absorb “best-of-breed” policy solutions, even if such exist. The optimal solutions are those that fit the circumstances, not the abstractly “best” solutions. This has been the guiding principle behind everything LIRNEasia has done in South and South East Asia over the past decade.2 Myanmar’s circumstances must be understood in a systematic way to devise the optimal solutions based on experience, preferably from countries not too dissimilar from it. LIRNEasia, a regional think tank which has actively engaged in countries similar to Myanmar for 10 years, and the Myanmar ICT Development Organization (MIDO), a Myanmar civil-society organization established in 2012,3 are ideally positioned to do this. The nature of the tasks that have to be accomplished are such that it would be necessary to have a three-year funding commitment. 2 LIRNEasia’s ongoing work in Myanmar LIRNEasia and MIDO have been collaborating with each other since 2013 in the activities described below. The proposed activities will also be conducted jointly. The core objective of LIRNEasia’s Myanmar engagement is to execute the proposed projects in ways that also result in building up MIDO so that it can develop into an effective independent entity that can generate policy-relevant evidence and contribute to Myanmar’s reform process. This will, we believe, be a significant contribution to the formation of tomorrow’s leaders for Myanmar. LIRNEasia has already made a start by conducting baseline qualitative (completed4) and quantitative (ongoing) surveys of information & knowledge consumption patterns, ICT sector performance reports (ongoing) and by analyzing the relevant legislation (commenced). Three training courses have been conducted, with MIDO successfully assembling high-quality audiences for the latter two.5 Books and articles on the ongoing ICT reforms and ideas for the future in English and Myanmar have been published by LIRNEasia and MIDO.6 As a result, LIRNEasia and MIDO have credibility within key government agencies.7 2 In the context of regulatory or good-governance solutions, the earliest study to support this position was Levy, B & Spiller, P. T. (1994). The Institutional Foundations of Regulatory Commitment: A Comparative Analysis of Telecommunications Regulation, Journal of Law, Economics, & Organization, Vol. 10, No. 2, pp. 201-246. 3 Founded by four bloggers, the best known among them being Nay Phone Latt, winner of PEN Barbara Goldsmith and RFS’s Cyber Dissidents awards and included in list of 100 global influentials by Time in 2010: http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1984685_1984949_1985235,00.html. 4 Summary slides at http://lirneasia.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/3-LIRNEasia_HelaniGalpayaMyanmarMicorentrepreneurs_010814.pdf 5 For government officials in August 2013; for civil society and officials in September 2013; for Parliamentarians in July 2014. 6 E.g., http://lirneasia.net/2014/07/myanmar-launch-of-information-lives-of-the-poor-book/ 7 As evidenced by the attendance of 18 Parliamentarians from six political parties including the ruling party at the July 2014 course and meetings with senior officials including the Deputy Minister of Communication and Information Technology in Nay Pyi Taw in October 2014. 6