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| Jasmine at the June 2, 2013 discussions. On the side is YB Jayakumar and at the back is Mr Menon and Ms Devakunjari |
Bottom 40% irrespective of ethnic, religious,
geographical location, gender and nature of vulnerability. By Mrs Jasmine Adaickalam, Managing Consultant, C CODES
Introduction
In the Past few
years, may be from 2004 onwards the phrase ‘bottom 40%’, has become a sort of
catch phrase in most government policy documents and also in all the academic
review of the socio-economic realities of the Malaysian society. Many new
programmes have been planned to alleviate and ease the lives of those who fall
into this social strata called the bottom 40%. It is timely that we do a review
of these policies and programme to see their effectiveness and success and to
design appropriate progressive policies and implementation process that do not
fall through the gaps.
The critical
words are strengthening participatory development, engagement with the poor and
disadvantaged and national reconciliation. Issues related to the bottom 40% people groups are very
dynamic but relative. They are complex in nature and have multi-dimensional
tentacles that affect the different segments of Malaysian community. The psycho-social
and economic realities of this segment of community vary from region to region,
country to country, culture to culture and are also subjected to the
availability and unavailability of the types of resources within that specified
context.
If these issues go unattended the
social fabric can be destroyed and can erode the harmony of any nation. In view
of this, identifying the local contextual realities, engagement with the poor,
disadvantaged and marginalised communities, repenting for the types of existing
social exclusion, unjust structure and policy patterns and formulating an
agenda for social inclusion and national reconciliation is critical and an
option that cannot have the luxury of choice.
Fill the
GapsBottom 40% is 2/5th of the total Malaysian society. This chunk of people groups can be further delineated into further specifications such as absolute poor, poor, the low-income group and the rest of the bottom 40% for effective delivery and also to safeguard the vulnerable people groups from falling into the gaps that form an evil trap that keeps them forever in to the clutches of absolute poverty and poverty. This will be an appropriate inclusion strategy that ensures everyone has an opportunity to go up the socio-economic ladder. These diverse need groups and their pressing realities need to be addressed concurrently and not one after another. Currently, the absolute poor and poor are identified as the critical target group.
Affirmative,
pro-poor policies irrespective of race, religion, gender or political
affiliation
The proponents of poverty mitigation
need to keep in view of the unalterable reality that, ‘Poor is poor’, no matter
from what race, religion, gender or political divide they come from. All
poverty mitigation provisions and programmes should reach out to all
communities and people groups without any differentiation. While there are
government linked organisations such as Amanah Ikhtiar Malaysia (AIM) provides
assistance training to poor and vulnerable women groups, there should be
provisions for such needy men as well. NEM with its pro-poor policies should
reach out to all poor irrespective of their ethnic group.
In many incidences, it is seen
injustice being meted out to poor and low-income communities on account of
their political affiliation. Party affiliation is an individual democratic
right; it cannot be vilified to punish vulnerable people groups. Government
provisions are for all Malaysian citizens and not for one particular political
party. So provisions should be distributed through ear-marked agencies than
through political parties or through party related government organisations.
Political parties can create their own resource pool to provide assistance to
the bottom 40% of their own political affiliates.
Local
Councils, R/Ts, R/As and JKKKs stay clear of party politics while program
delivery
Local councillors are public servants
who look into the real needs of the community, in which they are serving and
not playing up to the whims and fancies of the political masters. The same way
the Rukun Tetangga Committees and their heads need to serve all people groups
under their governance. They do not have the right to discriminate anyone on
the basis of their individual political allegiance, race or religious
belonging. The same thing goes for Pengerak-pengerak Masyarakat or community
mobilisers from the Department of NBational Unity and National Integration. All
these have the accountability to unite and not devide community members. It is
an unpardonable crime.
Poverty
Eradication, a Programme or Project?
Malaysia has gone leap and bounds in
poverty eradication. No one can deny this. Its proven track record in poverty
alleviation has earned an undeniable status in the global arena. The other
third world countries are looking up to Malaysia to learn from its experiences
and expertise in poverty eradication. This is a feather on our Malaysian cap.
But this is still not enough to sit
back relaxing on our well-earned laurels, as we have yet another leg or two to
reach the finishing line of attaining the status of a fully developed nation.
This remaining distance in poverty mitigation needs accuracy in targeting,
innovation and creativity in planning and last but not least leak-proof
delivery. All these point towards the dearth of programme blue print in poverty
control management and eradication. It has to be a regular, systematic,
continuous programme, which goes through annual review and evaluation process
and not noe-off kind of project. This strategic programme plan is paramount, as
this will determine if the country will attain the status of a developed
nation.
Participatory,
bottom-up approach against top-down trickle
Poor or otherwise, every single God
created individual has a personhood, resourcefulness that can help his/her self
and also the community/neighbourhood around. The current trend and fashion in
poverty mitigation is for the concerned stakeholders who provide funding and
assistance to assume the role of champions and spokesperson for the poor. It is
not wrong, but it becomes a crime against the community, when they do not
listen to the community and don’t make the voices of the poor heard through
them. Do not rob the poor of their opportunity to voice out their concerns but
do listen to the community of their needs, aspirations, perceptions and their
own innate resourcefulness. The vulnerable people groups should become a
vibrant force to be reckoned with their dignity restored, voices heard and not
robbed and plundered of their dignity and right to express their views.
Search
for neighbourhoods and districts with Pockets of Poor
The poor will always be there but not
everywhere, especially in a developing nation like that of Malaysia. The
effective poverty mitigation efforts of the government has reduced and
controlled the nation-wide prevalence of poverty in Malaysia that existed in
the yester years to current pockets of poverty in certain districts. These
districts have their innate resources and lack of them. So, in order to be
effective in poverty alleviation and also to increase the household income
levels, the policy or strategy of poverty eradication or the blue print of it
needs to be adjusted and designed accordingly around these resources and around
these districts. This is where the local councils and district offices need to
come alive with war room strategies.
Understand
the Rural-Urban Divide
Industrialisation and modernisation
has stealthily increased the number of urban poor community settlements. The
issues of urban poor as opposed to the rural poor are different apart from that
of low income levels. The natural resources that are freely available in rural
sector are not readily available in the urban enclaves to cushion the serious
backlashes of poverty. There is this luxury of space and time to rear goats,
cows and chicken or even a small vacant plot of land to cultivate some
vegetables and fruits for the family use or even grow some flowers or other
agricultural produce for commercial purposes. But this is rarity in urban and sub-urban
housing areas.
Generally the kampongs and estates
provided space for the homogeneous community living that has its inherent
blessing of informal social control and support system. There is a clear
cultural and religious and ethnic affinity that allows the households to cry
and laugh together as a homogeneous community system. But coming to urban poor
housing areas, this is a far cry. So there is a definite lack of shock
absorbers in urban settlements. Gaining trust and confidence of the neighbours
takes a long time. Nonetheless, the urban poor neighbourhoods are not entirely
devoid of their own reservoir of resources. Coordinating and re-distributing
these resources in an equitable manner will surely bear fruits in poverty
eradication.
Know the Complexity
of Urban Poverty and Include
The magnitudes of urban poverty
fundamentally differ from that of rural poverty. Urban pockets of poor
households are engineered to have a multi-ethnic composition, while their rural
counterparts take cocoon in a homogeneous community living. The emotional
bonding and mutual understanding and community cooperation that arises out of
the comforts of common language, culture, tradition, religion and
socio-economic strata, becomes a major plus-point in overcoming struggles.
Since 1990, Malaysia has been into
urgent and aggressive modernisation. This has been compounded with the major
crop change policy, which is from rubber to oil palm. Since then, a major
rural-urban shift and exodus has taken place. This unfortunate outcome has
resulted in low/no skill labourers with low/no education have moved in masses
to urban centres for opportunities for livelihoods and settled as illegal
squatters. The households that enjoyed free housing in estates and free land
for other agricultural and farming activities lost such benefits when they
moved to urban centres. Above this, they also lost their roots, their cultural
identity and their sense of belonging, as they did not have a place to call
their own.
Now these migrants called urban poor
sport a displaced and fragmented individualistic living. To make matters worse,
when they are moved into urban poor low-cost housing, they have been thrust to
live with other ethnic communities, whom they had never interfaced before. This
breeds animosity, distrust and ill feeling among the neighbours belonging to
different ethnic and sub-ethnic groups. This leads to misunderstanding,
intolerance and cultural and religious insensitivities, which ends up in crime
and violence. But this dimension of urban poverty is not considered as an
indicator to urban poverty.
Urban centres are also not very
conducive to family solidarity and harmony; unless and until planned special
efforts are not taken. What with work pressure, increased cost of living in urban
centres, irregular shift duties, the lack of extended family support, lack of
recreational facilities and social amenities many urban poor households become
dysfunctional and there is a serious dent in the individual stress-coping
mechanism. This again gives birth to single-parent families, where children
become disadvantaged, educational under-achievers, prone to anti-social
behaviour with lack of parental care and supervision. Unless this situation is
handled with delicate affirmative action, the urban poor neighbourhood may
become a breeding ground for vice and criminal activities.
Systematic
Holistic Poverty Eradication is the ONLY Option
Considering the intricate and intense
poverty dynamics mentioned above, putting money into the pockets of poor households
alone will not make a best solution to eradicate poverty. While trying to
increase the household income levels, more needs to be concurrently done in
terms of building the soft skills of the community through community
mobilisation to build community cohesion and the informal social support,
hand-holding through psycho-social transformation of the poor towards
confidence boosting and to sustain the positive change that has started to
sprout.
More educational development, family
enrichment, women development, business skills, discipline training, life
skills development and other such initiatives that can empower and enable the
poor households to take charge of their lives confidently should be imbued. If
not the income increase will be a lop-sided growth and development and at time
this can turn out to be a potential threat to the social fabric of the
community and the households can fall into the vicious downward poverty cycle.
This will sap the energy and resources of the government.
Entrepreneurial
Poor vs Labouring Poor
Culturally and contextually people’s
economic activities and their economy boosting activities differ. While some
are labouring poor, the others can be entrepreneurial poor. Some may have an
interest in micro or small businesses to enhance their income levels or would
have had some past experience in entrepreneurial activities. Others may just
look for better employment that earns them a regular monthly income as they may
not want to be risk takers. So poverty eradication techniques need to be
mindful of these labouring poor whose plight is multiplied with lack of/no
education, being a single parent with many young dependant mouths to feed and
are also have many health complications due to lack of nutritious food.
Some
Recommendations that can Pave way to Reconciliation
1.
Specific
affirmative policies and programmes need to be created or given an
understanding to include all poor irrespective of race, religion, gender,
political affiliation etc.
2. Design special programmes to address the diverse dimensions of the urban poor.
3.
Resuscitate/Revive
districts based poverty eradication programmes by setting up district based
poverty focal points
4. Avoid making political parties or political affiliation based government linked organisations
5.
Add
poor to be beneficiaries in all development plans
6.
Include
the voices of the poor in all pro-poor policies. Listen! Listen! Listen to the
voices of the vulnerable and poor communities and do not assume to design
programmes and policies that affect their lives directly.
