OBITUARY
An economist who prized people over numbers, Paul left behind a legacy in Myanmar that is celebrated by his colleagues, students and friends.
By FRIENDS OF PAUL | FRONTIER
Paul Minoletti, who died on August 24 aged 40, was an economic historian committed to promoting the role of women in Myanmar politics, and to materially improving conditions for the country’s marginalised communities.
Rare among economists, Paul could weave together insights and data from multiple disciplines, and he was ultimately more interested in people than numbers. Across some 20 published papers and dozens of talks, he conveyed discomfiting truths to state and rival ethnic authorities, as well as diplomats, about inequalities in a liberalising Myanmar during the years before the 2021 coup; and he kept contributing to Myanmar’s public life even after the military seized power.
Living in Yangon between 2012 and 2020, he cut an unconventional figure. Six foot four inches with voluminous dark hair, a face-splitting grin and a doctorate from the University of Oxford, Paul went about his days in Kachin, Karen and Mon attire and addressed conference rooms in Nay Pyi Taw in a hot pink longyi. He enjoyed hard trance, heavy metal and Avril Lavigne. As a teacher he spurned the traditional teacher-student hierarchy, regularly inviting pupils to his Yangon apartment for study groups.
Raised in Essex in the United Kingdom as the son of a town planner and a social worker, Paul’s first engagement with Myanmar was in 2005, when he spent four months as a volunteer English teacher at the Democratic Alliance of Burma in Mae Sot, Thailand. Returning to the UK in 2006, he undertook a Master’s and then a PhD at Oxford, the latter degree examining discrimination against women workers in the textile mills of 19th century England. His doctoral thesis was much cited and could have led to an academic career in the UK, but his supervisor Professor Jane Humphries said “Paul’s big heart had already been captured by Myanmar … and he wanted to continue his collaboration with the people of a country that he loved”.
So, he returned to Southeast Asia, first as a volunteer teacher at the Mae La Oo Refugee Camp in Thailand, where he taught English, mathematics and economics to Karen who had fled military oppression in Myanmar. Those who met him there noted his keen awareness that he was learning more from his students than he could ever teach them.
In April 2012 Paul moved to Myanmar, which a year earlier had begun its decade-long experiment in liberalisation. He became a research coordinator for the Yangon-based Centre for Economic and Social Development, and so began a formidable career in applied research and support for genuine reform in the country.
At a time when Western governments were concerned with opening up Myanmar’s economy and empowering civilian politicians at the expense of the military, Paul encouraged a deeper understanding of what a democratic society should do for its people, including women and children, and repeatedly warned of the disparities that resulted from typical neoliberal economic development. In papers for CESD and organisations including The Asia Foundation, the United Nations Children’s Fund and the Asian Development Bank, he advocated for gender budgeting skills for civil servants, quantified the economic value of women’s increased participation in Myanmar politics and governance, and encouraged greater state investment in Myanmar’s children and social services.
This focus continued through his later work with the International Growth Centre, the Myanmar Institute for Gender Studies and other noted organisations. Human rights activist Cheery Zahau said, “Every conversation I had with him included women’s economic empowerment in Myanmar and practical ideas to improve the situation.”
Despite Paul’s professional success, he never let his career conflict with his principles. After an NGO in Yangon he was working with failed to take action in a sexual assault claim, and also remained silent in the face of sexual violence against Rohingya in 2017, Paul went to the office, explained his disappointment and withdrew his collaboration. While moving between full-time and consultant positions, he took on frequent pro bono work, and spent much of his spare time supporting young researchers and persuading others to do the same.
When Paul was earning a salary, he donated significant sums to causes he felt close to, especially in the years after the 2021 coup. Students also recall how, years after their time with him, he would call and congratulate them on reaching academic or professional milestones. The historian U Thant Myint-U, who employed Paul as a senior research manager at his U Thant House institute from 2020-23, said he had “an incredible generosity of spirit that seemed to shape and guide everything about him”.
Besides these qualities, Paul was irresistibly fun and exuberant, and remained so after the onset of cancer in 2017. After an initially successful round of treatment back in the UK, he returned there periodically for checkups and embarked on an exercise regimen that saw him cycling, running or swimming dozens of miles each day. One friend who joined him for a bike ride remembers waiting for him in central London and hearing, far in the distance but moving closer, Diana Ross blasting out from a speaker fitted to the frame of his bicycle, followed by the sight of Paul hurtling down the road dressed head to toe in fluorescent lycra.
He left Myanmar for the last time in 2020, for what he thought was a temporary trip before COVID-19 travel restrictions blocked his return. The cancer came back in 2021, and over the subsequent years Paul underwent a number of treatments while continuing to work. In late 2022, he moved to Thailand and took up a role at the School of Governance and Public Administration, where he taught a course on public financial management to aspiring Myanmar public leaders working outside the military regime. Saw Kapi, who founded the school after the coup, said Paul’s classes combined a “deep understanding of economic policy and financial management” and a “commitment to fostering the next generation of leaders”. He said Paul’s impact on the school and the broader community “will be felt for years to come”.
In May last year, he returned to the UK, where he continued to remotely teach classes and mentor local researchers, many of whom were in conflict zones. “In my first online meeting with Paul, a jet fighter flew over my head – a moment that became remarkable for me, not just because of the noise, but because of how he showed empathy towards a local-based researcher like me,” one researcher recalled.
Paul’s partner Mai, whom he had met in Yangon, joined him in the UK in the summer of this year and the two of them married. They travelled in the weeks afterwards, including to Scotland, where Paul took a swim in the North Sea, whose waters are a long way from the warm, tropical seas off Myanmar. When a friend asked how he coped with the biting-cold water, he turned, laughed and shot back: “You just fucking get on with it.”
