Impact case study database

Influence on Policymaking

Through over 40 engagements between 2014 and 2019, Jones influenced policymaking by providing advice and training and through direct involvement in policy planning and briefings. His key findings – that sanctions had failed and engagement, however constrained, was a superior policy option – have been accepted at the highest levels of government. This was a substantial change from 2012, when a then-Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) minister declared that Myanmar’s transition proved ‘the power of sanctions.’

Summarising the impact, Britain’s ambassador (2013-17) identifies Jones as

‘one of the two or three most active advisors to the UK Government on Burma […] his briefings significantly enhanced my understanding and thus helped me and the Embassy to achieve our goals’ [5.1].

Jones informed UK government work by providing regular input for FCO Research Analysts’ internal analysis and policy recommendations, and by training government personnel through the FCO’s Diplomatic Academy. For example, under FCO contract Jones organised a day-long training event for FCO officials on Myanmar and Bangladesh (February 2016). The FCO states that attendees ‘learnt a lot… [We] have some better-informed policy leads out there now’ [5.3]. Jones also taught senior military officers about sanctions, with the Commandant of the Royal College of Defence Studies stating that Jones had ‘achieved that rare goal of changing how [participants] thought about a subject’ [5.4].

Policy and Strategy Consultation and Reporting

Jones shaped official thinking, recommendations and policies by participating directly in policy discussion and development. As the FCO’s former Burma analyst states, Jones participated ‘in a wide range of FCO-led conferences, seminars and training events [and briefed] FCO staff including very senior officials’ [5.2]. Examples of engagements include a workshop on sanctions with FCO and Treasury officials (2014); two Wilton Park conferences to brainstorm long-range Western policy towards Myanmar (2019); three workshops to develop UK policy around the 2015 elections (October-December 2015); two meetings on the Rohingya crisis (2016, 2017); and a forum on narcotics at the British embassy (September 2018).

Jones also consulted for the Department for International Development’s Legal Assistance for Economic Reform (LASER) programme. His research showed that LASER’s specific objectives (pro-market legal and rule-of-law reforms) were unlikely to succeed in Myanmar’s socio-political context. Accordingly, LASER ‘decided to invest funds elsewhere’ [5.5].

Jones’s findings also formed the basis of an internal report circulated across Whitehall in 2016, which argued that sanctions had failed. Its author states that:

‘through this report, Dr Jones’s research had an extremely important influence on UK Burma policy, helping to support continued engagement and avoid a return to sanctions’ [5.6].

This was especially critical after the 2017 Rohingya crisis, when calls for sanctions mounted. Notwithstanding the moral outrage sparked by the horrendous treatment of the Rohingya, Jones reiterated his findings that sanctions would be ineffective, proposing instead a strategy of aid and diplomatic engagement, including working with China. He briefed the heads of the FCO’s Bangladesh and Burma teams (September 2017) and the Cabinet Office (November 2017), and his research was also used to brief the Foreign Secretary [5.6].

As a Cabinet Office official states, Jones supplied ‘important and well-judged advice […] at a critical time for UK-Burma relations,’ having ‘significant impact on a briefing paper setting out policy options for the Prime Minister. His influence was especially notable on the section on international sanctions’ [5.7].

Reporting to Government and Parliament

Jones directly shaped Parliament’s recommendations. He provided written evidence to the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee (FAC) on Myanmar and sanctions (7 January 2015) and written and oral evidence to the FAC’s Rohingya crisis inquiry (October 2017). His evidence – described by FAC’s chair as ‘hugely useful’ – was cited nine times in the FAC’s Rakhine report, and clearly steered the Committee to recognise ‘the difficulty of securing and making sanctions effective’ [5.8].

The FCO’s response to the FAC report, and its policy decisions, reflected Jones’s research findings. It noted that ‘analysts argue there is a risk that a return to this approach [of sanctions] may set back Burma’s democratic transition […] without changing the behaviour of the Burmese military;’ that targeted sanctions ‘have a limited impact on senior Burmese military figures;’ and that ‘two decades of Western sanctions’ had simply ‘led the Burmese military to look elsewhere for its main defence and economic ties’ [5.8]. The government limited sanctions to small, symbolic measures, opting for an alternative strategy of engagement, as Jones had recommended. This included recognition that ‘the democratic transition remains incomplete, and the positive trajectory has stalled’ (as indicated in outputs 3.4-3.5) and a commitment to ‘encourage China… to add their weight to efforts to respond to the crisis’ [5.8].

Jones subsequently participated in a July 2019 Cabinet Office review of UK Myanmar policy, having ‘a major impact on our thinking, directly contributing to the assessment that will influence UK policy on Myanmar’ [5.9].

He was also consulted regularly by officials, providing analysis and policy advice following Myanmar’s 2021 military coup. Due to Jones’s input, government continued to recognise that earlier sanctions had ‘hurt the wrong people and may even have strengthened the military. Mindful that punitive measures have a very limited impact, there is a desire to explore other options,’ including working with regional powers and supporting opposition forces [5.6].