"CSOs are essential for any country’s successful COVID-19 response. In Myanmar, civil society organisations are working quickly and efficiently on the frontlines, supporting the communities and Government in their immediate COVID-19 response. The CSOs receive both direct and indirect funding from various international organisations. Of the 153 organisations engaged in LIFT’s COVID-19 response, 128 (or 84%) are local or national organisations - present, committed, quick and responsive to the emerging needs. LIFT also estimates that more than 80% of the response activity is undertaken by local partners - it is they who go to villages, factories, quarantine centers, camps and border gates (while international staff and sometimes national staff from international organisations are not allowed) and it is they who provide the awareness training through loudspeakers and pamphlets, visit families in their homes, and support quarantine centers with essential materials. By example, LIFT’s five strategic civil society partners (Karuna Mission Social Solidarity, Land Core Group, Metta, Network Activities Group, and Gender Equality Network) alone reached almost a million beneficiaries, of which half are women, within the first month of their emergency response. Their COVID work has also extended to influencing policy and practice, for example GEN's work with the Ministry of Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement to announce nation-wide GBV data in collaboration with all CSOs and international organisations. LIFT’s Decent Work and Labour Mobility programme delivered emergency support to 355,673 direct beneficiaries (of which 58% are women), across multiple states and regions of Myanmar, covering Yangon, Kayin, Mon, Shan, Tanintharyi, Bago, Chin, Mandalay, Magway, Bago and Ayeyarwaddy. A key factor behind the effectiveness of this response in these difficult times is the engagement of local civil society and labour organisations in the management and implementation before and during the crisis. With local organisations’ ability to mobilise quickly, their high level of personal commitment and their extensive local knowledge, these organisations have formed the backbone of LIFT’s support to migrants in border areas, communities of origin and communities of destination. Our local CSO partners have also supported internal migrants through the provision of shelter and food and financial support to women in crisis, particularly the garment workers who have lost their jobs due to widespread factory closures in Yangon. LIFT-funded CSOs have also provided legal assistance to migrant workers to claim compensation for terminated employment and resolve labour disputes, both of which have increased dramatically during the pandemic, they supported community-level quarantine facilities and raising of awareness in Yangon’s Hlaing Thar Yar Township..."