'Assistance now is significantly less than it was in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis. Villagers are saying there is now insufficient assistance getting to them,' said Mr Jock McKeon, a World Bank senior financial specialist.

He was speaking to about 140 envoys, Myanmar civil servants, and representatives from the United Nations and international aid agencies gathered here for an update on the post-cyclone relief efforts.

The roundtable was convened by the Tripartite Core Group (TCG), a joint effort by Asean, Myanmar's government and the UN to oversee the post-Nargis relief and recovery work.

Mr McKeon said preliminary results based on a survey of eight villages last month showed that people were worried about the lack of drinking water during the imminent dry season, a poor rice harvest, scarce credit and rising debt.

He stressed that the findings of the initial survey might not be representative of the situation of the 2.4 million victims of the deadliest natural calamity in Myanmar's history, which left 138,000 people dead or missing.

Said Dr Pavin Chachavalpongpun of Singapore's Institute of Southeast Asian Studies: 'I can tell that people in the outside world have already forgotten what happened in Myanmar.'

The effort also suffers from a funding shortfall. Mr Bishow Parajuli, a TCG member and humanitarian coordinator with the UN, said 63 per cent of the US$473 million (S$714 million) needed for overall relief operations until next April has been raised so far.

The amount is a far cry from the estimated US$1 billion needed for the next three years, and a pittance compared to the US$7 billion raised in the aftermath of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.

A donors' meeting is planned for Dec 2 in Yangon, Mr Parajuli said, calling for continued 'kind and generous' support from donor countries.

The TCG also plans to present a draft of long-term goals - in areas from sanitation to livelihood - at the Asean Summit in Chiang Mai in the middle of next month.

One of the biggest donors so far, Britain, said TCG can be assured that aid will continue to flow in as long as the Group stays on the right track.

But the country's ambassador to Myanmar, Mr Mark Canning, warned that the junta's recent jailing of scores of anti-government activists may alienate its mostly Western donors.

Dr Pavin noted that there have been 'some changes' in Myanmar since the cyclone, but 'the challenge from now on is to keep the momentum alive'.