Strengthening participatory development by engaging the poor and disadvantaged communities

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 Gaps
Bottom 40% is 2/5^th 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.