Guest contributor

Moe Gyo

In recent decades, Myanmar has become a major recipient of international humanitarian and development aid. Following natural disasters, periods of political transition, and humanitarian crises, Western international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) have significantly increased their presence across the country. 

These INGOs often operate with mandates to alleviate suffering, promote human rights, and build institutional capacity. However, behind the ostensibly apolitical and benevolent nature of aid lies a more complex reality: aid serving as a vehicle for soft power and ideological influence.

The concept of social engineering, generally defined as the attempt to influence or control the behavior and beliefs of individuals and societies, can be applied to the ways in which Western INGOs operate in aid-receiving countries. 

In Myanmar, aid often carries with it the implicit transmission of Western values—ranging from liberal democracy and secularism to gender and identity politics. These imported ideals frequently conflict with deeply rooted cultural, religious, and social norms in Myanmar, leading to cultural dissonance, resistance, and, in some cases, the erosion of traditional values.

Traditional leaders, including Buddhist monks and village elders, have voiced concerns that foreign aid not only challenges national sovereignty, but also undermines moral and spiritual values. 

This backlash has contributed to the rise of cultural preservation movements, including nationalist rhetoric that paints INGOs as agents of Western domination. 

While such responses can veer into xenophobia or political manipulation, they reflect legitimate grievances about the lack of cultural sensitivity and reciprocity in aid programs.

Aid is rarely unconditional. INGOs, often funded by governments or philanthropic foundations with specific agendas, may require local organizations to align with donor values. Conditionality can lead to a form of ideological coercion, whereby communities feel pressured to accept foreign values to receive material support. 

This undermines local agency and reinforces the perception that aid is a tool of cultural imperialism. For example, grants may stipulate that recipients must adopt policies related to gender equality, secular education, or Western-style democratic governance. 

While these aims may be progressive from a donor’s perspective, they often clash with conservative and religious norms in Myanmar, especially in rural areas. 

This form of social engineering often occurs subtly, but its impacts are significant and far-reaching. Thus, it is important to understand the mechanisms through which values are transmitted and where local cultures and norms have been challenged or undermined.

Western INGOs often operate within normative frameworks that reflect the values of liberal democratic societies, including an emphasis on individual human rights, secularism, gender equality, and freedom of expression. 

These frameworks are embedded in everything from education and governance to healthcare and civil society development. INGOs rarely promote them overtly; instead, they are woven into training materials, project objectives, and capacity-building activities. 

While these ideals are foundational in donor countries, they may contrast sharply with the cultural, religious, and social fabric of Myanmar, which is deeply rooted in Buddhist morality, communal values, and hierarchical social systems. 

As a result, the values embedded in aid programs can produce friction, not only at the institutional level, but also within communities and families, where traditional norms still hold strong influence.

A particularly influential subset of normative frameworks adopted by INGOs is Western feminist theory, which shapes many gender-related interventions in Myanmar. 

These frameworks prioritize autonomy, equal participation in public life, and economic independence for women—principles often implemented through programs that encourage gender parity, reproductive rights, and women’s leadership. 

However, these ideals may overlook the cultural significance of women’s roles in Myanmar society, which are frequently connected to spiritual obligations, family responsibilities, and communal life. 

In many cases, programs based on Western feminism are viewed not as liberating, but as culturally disruptive, particularly in rural areas where kinship and religious traditions define gender norms.

Western INGOs have heavily invested in promoting women’s empowerment in Myanmar, with programs aimed at advancing gender equality, political participation, and economic independence. 

These interventions—especially those that focus on gender quotas for political representation or reproductive rights, including birth control—frequently encounter resistance, as they are seen by some as foreign impositions. 

For example, the introduction of gender quotas designed to increase female participation in local village governance has been met with skepticism in communities where leadership is traditionally held by men. 

Similarly, reproductive health programs promoting birth control and family planning can clash with local beliefs, where larger families are viewed not only as a spiritual blessing, but also as an economic asset. 

In such contexts, women who engage in these programs sometimes face ostracization or criticism, accused of abandoning their traditional roles and responsibilities.

Logical frameworks, or “log frames,” are widely used by Western INGOs and donor agencies to plan, monitor, and evaluate aid programs. Designed to enhance efficiency, accountability, and results-based management, log frames break down projects into measurable objectives, outputs, activities, and indicators. 

While this methodology helps donors track progress and justify funding, it also serves as a tool for social engineering by embedding specific assumptions about what constitutes progress, success, and impact.

These assumptions—often rooted in Western development ideals such as individual empowerment, gender equality, or democratic participation—are built into the structure of the log frame, thereby shaping not only how aid is delivered, but also what kinds of social change are prioritized.

In the context of Myanmar, the use of log frames can subtly impose external values by incentivizing local organizations to conform to donor expectations. 

For example, community-based organizations (CBOs) may be required to demonstrate progress using indicators like the number of women in leadership roles or the percentage of youth attending human rights workshops—metrics that reflect Western liberal priorities. 

To secure funding, local actors often tailor their language, strategies, and outcomes to fit within these pre-set frameworks, even when they do not fully align with local realities or needs. 

This process encourages the internalization of donor values and the gradual reshaping of cultural and institutional norms, making the log frame not just a management tool, but a mechanism for orchestrating societal transformation according to external blueprints.

Political correctness in language, as promoted by many Western INGOs, often emphasizes inclusive, non-discriminatory, and rights-based terminology. 

This includes reframing discussions around race, ability, and class in ways that align with global human rights discourse. In donor countries, this approach is seen as a way to foster respect, reduce harm, and promote equality. 

However, when these linguistic norms are introduced in culturally distinct settings like Myanmar, they can be met with confusion, skepticism, or outright resistance. 

The shift in language often feels foreign, not only because of translation issues, but also due to the disconnect between local worldviews and the ideological assumptions embedded in politically correct speech.

In Myanmar, where communication styles tend to be indirect, respectful of hierarchy, and deeply embedded in religious and cultural norms, the push for politically correct language can seem abrupt or even confrontational. 

For instance, local expressions that reflect traditional gender roles or religious beliefs may be discouraged or labeled as discriminatory by INGOs, even when they are central to community identity. This can lead to accusations of cultural insensitivity when language reforms are perceived as erasing local ways of speaking and thinking. 

Furthermore, the emphasis on politically correct language may privilege English-speaking, urban populations more familiar with these norms, further marginalizing rural voices and traditional perspectives in civil society and aid-related discourse.

Western INGOs frequently engage in education reform and capacity-building initiatives. However, these often privilege Western knowledge systems, Western curricula, and foreign pedagogical models. 

As a result, local languages, traditional education methods, and indigenous knowledge systems are marginalized. This also contributes to the rise of a local “NGO/CBO elite”—a class of local urban, English-speaking activists who are often disconnected from rural communities and traditional authority structures. 

These elites may become more loyal to international standards and funding mechanisms than to national or cultural priorities.

Traditional culture in Myanmar places immense importance on respect for elders, a value rooted in both religious and cultural practices. However, Western educational interventions, particularly those focusing on critical thinking, can sometimes undermine this respect. 

INGOs often promote Western-style pedagogy, which encourages questioning authority and promoting individual autonomy, in contrast to the deference to elders that is central to Myanmar’s traditional social fabric. 

This shift in educational norms can create generational divides, with younger people exposed to these new ways of thinking becoming more critical of their elders’ guidance. 

Programs that promote critical thinking as an essential educational skill challenge the social hierarchy, leading to tensions within families and communities. 

Such shifts undermine the authority of traditional leaders, including monks and village elders, who have long played central roles in guiding moral and social behavior.

Western INGOs have played a key role in building Myanmar’s civil society, providing funding, training, and international platforms for advocacy. However, this support has led to the emergence of an urban, donor-dependent NGO/CBO sector, often criticized for being disconnected from grassroots realities. 

These organizations may adopt donor language and priorities, rather than those of the communities they purport to serve. Many INGOs require English-language reporting, which excludes a large portion of local activists and fosters exclusionary hierarchies within the civil society landscape. 

Moreover, the professionalization of activism—driven by INGO demands—risks turning resistance into a career path rather than a social movement, thereby depoliticizing grassroots efforts and entrenching foreign agendas.

Myanmar’s experience with Western aid reveals the often-contradictory nature of humanitarian and development interventions. Conditionality in aid acts as a subtle yet powerful mechanism of ideological influence. 

Material support is too often tied to the adoption of values aligned with donor priorities. This transforms aid from a freely given humanitarian act into an exchange based on ideological compliance, blurring the line between assistance and coercion. 

Communities may feel compelled to compromise their own cultural norms in order to access resources, deepening the perception that foreign aid is a form of soft imperialism rather than solidarity. 

Ultimately, aid should not be about remaking societies in the image of the donor, but about enabling them to realize their own aspirations. True empowerment begins not with external blueprints, but with the recognition of a people’s right to define their own destiny.

Moe Gyo is a political consultant and strategist working on the Thailand-Myanmar border. 

DVB publishes a diversity of opinions that does not reflect DVB editorial policy. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our stories: [email protected]