Burma connection threatens USAID funding
WASHINGTON, 10 August 2010 ― USAID funding for a project that gave ASEAN a tourism website and campaign “Southeast Asia: Feel the Warmth” is under review following criticism that it may have a commercial value for Myanmar and break strict US sanctions.
A source in the US capital confirmed that “a review of the funding is going on to determine whether the project violates Burma sanctions, but a conclusion hasn’t been reached yet.”
According to the current rules of engagement, USAID can support humanitarian projects, education, training and health related projects in Myanmar. However, the ASEAN Competitiveness Enhancement project (ACE) funds a consumer website that adopts a commercial role to drive bookings to all member countries including Myanmar.
It understood that a “US congressman’s office booked and paid for hotels in Burma through the booking engine on www.southeastasia.org. His office filed the payment documents as evidence that the USAID funded website may have delivered commercial value to a country under trade sanctions.”
Details are sketchy, but it is understood that, depending on a review committee’s decision, USAID officials may be forced to resubmit and justify funding for the ACE project that is supposed to run through to 2013.
Reliable sources said the entire ACE project relating to tourism is at stake.
Asked for a comment, a Washington source said it was “not possible to second guess how the review would go.”
A congressional challenge, based on concerns that USAID funds, directly or directly, promoted commercial business in Myanmar could also jeopardise funding for a similar website project involving the Mekong Tourism Co-ordinating Office.
The office manages promotions and marketing for six countries in the Mekong region – Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam and two provinces in China; Yunnan and Guangxi.
The USAID project is funding the remake of the office’s marketing website using the same booking engine featured on www.southeastasia.org, but focusing on driving bookings to just six Mekong region countries.
In February 2008, USAID launched the ASEAN Competitiveness Enhancement (ACE) Project to be implemented over five years (2008 to 2013). The core objective of the ACE Project was to enhance the competitiveness and regional integration of ASEAN’s priority industry sectors, with an emphasis placed on the developing economies of Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam (sometimes referred to as CLV).
The tourism segment of the ACE project, however, focused on all 10 countries which included Myanmar. The marketing side concentrated on the development and promotion of the campaign Southeast Asia: Feel the Warmth, through the consumer website http://www.southeastasia.org that was launched earlier this year featuring a commercial booking and payment capability built by Singapore-based Wego.Com.
