"To reduce poverty in Myanmar, it may be useful to give consideration to the following five issues: First, in order to go forward with poverty reduction, or more generally to go anywhere, we must know where we are at present. Hence, to improve the lot of the poor people in Myanmar we should start by having a clearer idea of who these poor people are, to find out what is their situation at present, and to listen to them about their needs and desires and what they feel should be done to help reduce their state of poverty. In addition, to get a better understanding of the situation of the poor people and to improve their well-being we must draw upon the vast experience of many of our compatriots in civil society organizations and NGOs, government officials, business people, scholars, academics and foreign experts and organizations that have done a lot of work related to poverty alleviation in the country, especially in rural and border areas and also with respect to meeting special needs of disadvantaged ethnic nationalities and other distressed communities in our society. Second, after finding out where we are at present and where we want to go, the next step will be to think of how to get there..." ....The following paper was presented to the ?Forum on Poverty? sponsored by the Burmese government in Naypyitaw on May 20-21, 2011...