Malaysia's experience with poverty reduction: Lessons for Bangladesh (original) (raw)

Poverty Reduction Policies in Malaysia: Trends, Strategies and Challenges

Asian Culture and History, 2013

Malaysia is a multi-ethnic religious country with a population of 28.5 million, it is characterised by mainly three ethnic groups-Malay and indigenous people, Chinese, and Indians. Ever since independence in 1957, Malaysia has successfully transformed itself from a poor country into a middle-income nation. The Malaysian economy has seen a periodic growth despite challenging external factors. It can also definitely claim its success of combat against poverty. Despite its poverty reduction success, there still remains a vulnerable group of people in the country experiencing poverty for some geographical and societal reasons. This concept paper has several objectives: A brief description of the country's nature of poverty, poverty reduction policies and programs, and an analysis facing the challenges and recommendations for a sustainable poverty reduction in Malaysia.

Development Issues, Policies and Actions: Selected Recent Works on Malaysia and Bangladesh

Publication Centre at Universiti Malaysia Perlis: Perlis, Malaysia and …, 2013

Development Issues, Policies and Actions are intended as a book of readings on development for the general readers and for the undergraduate and graduate students of development as a supplement to the textbook on economic development. It is written with materials mostly taken from our recent research works on current development issues and policy actions in Malaysia and Bangladesh. As a result, we believe that the intended readers and students will find the materials fairly known and easier to read and comprehend. To make the book more reader-friendly, we provided a comprehensive summary at the end of each essay. Readers who are time pressed but want to know the basic contents and the key messages of the essays at the shortest time at hand, can do so by reading the summaries of the essays. An additional and special feature of this book is that it emphasizes on the holistic and ethical aspects of development. This aspect is least covered by most standard textbooks on the subject. In that sense this book will serve as a make up for the deficiencies of the text book materials in terms of ethical orientation, essence, and higher goals of development. We gratefully acknowledge the generosity of the publishers and authors of all the research works from where the materials have been compiled for use in this book. Similarly, we are profoundly thankful to all the scholars, particularly to Prof. Golam Dastagir of Jahangirnagar University, Dhaka, and Prof. Munir Quddus of Prairie View A&M University, Texas, for their critical comments on the draft of the book. Specially, we are profoundly thankful and grateful to Prof. Datuk Dr. Syed Othman Alhabshi for writing the scholarly foreword of this book. Finally, we remain thankful to Universiti Malaysia Perlis, Malaysia and the International Islamic University Chittagong, Bangladesh for jointly publishing this book. The Authors Dated: February, 2012

Poverty Alleviation and Economic Development in Bangladesh

Poverty Alleviation and Economic Development in Bangladesh, 2022

Recently Bangladesh, a South Asian country, is celebrating its Golden Jubilee ceremony of its Independence Day. After a nine-month Liberation war with the supreme sacrifices of three million freedom fighters, Bangladesh finally achieved independence on December 16, 1971. Since its liberation war in 1971, the country has been known for its tragedies: wrenching poverty, natural disasters, and nowadays one of the world's biggest refugee crises, after the influx of 750,000 Rohingya Muslims fleeing persecution in neighboring Myanmar. Now, Bangladesh has also become one of the world's economic success stories. Aided by a fast-growing manufacturing sector - its readymade garment industry is second only to China's, the garment trade that began in Bangladesh in the 1970s is now a 34.13billionindustry,−−Bangladesh′seconomyhasaveragedabove634.13 billion industry, -- Bangladesh's economy has averaged above 6% annual growth for nearly a decade, reaching 7.86% in the year through June. Now Bangladesh is in the leading position among the South Asian countries based on the GDP growth rate. The Government of Bangladesh has taken enormous measures in this hurdle-ridden journey of eradicating poverty from the country and ensuring beyond poverty development and human dignity for all. Bangladesh will be pronounced as a country where poverty has been eliminated; the ruling development and the governance policy are inclusive, people-centered, sustainable, and equitable; and all citizens live a healthy, educated and empowered, and humanly honorable life. To reduce poverty to gradually lift the vast majority of the people above the poverty line and improve the quality of life for the average citizen is the most crucial goal of the economic policy of the government of Bangladesh. The policy implications of these results show that economic growth is the foremost tool for fighting against poverty. From mass starvation in 1974, the country has achieved near self-sufficiency in food production for its 160 million-plus population. Per capita income has risen nearly threefold since 2009, reaching 34.13billionindustry,−−Bangladesh′seconomyhasaveragedabove61,750 by 2019. The number of people living in extreme poverty -- classified as under $1.25 per day -- has shrunk from about 19% of the population to less than 9% over the same period, as per the World Bank record.

Poverty in Malaysia: Need for a Paradigm Shift

Malaysia aspires to be a developed nation by 2020 and if these development ambitions are to be attained Malaysia needs to reexamine its past approaches to reducing poverty and inequalities in the country. Malaysia is no longer just grappling with absolute poverty but also with relative poverty, pockets of persistent poverty and urban poverty as well as increasing inequalities. While rural poverty still continues to be the focus of policymakers, urban poverty also needs urgent policy attention and prescriptions. Stubborn pockets of poverty continue to elude policy solutions and new forms of poverty are emerging in the context of a country that sees itself as a developed nation by 2020. Close attention has to be paid to income distribution as progress towards poverty reduction is marred unless improvements in income distribution occur alongside poverty reduction. A paradigm shift is needed in the way in which poverty is conceptualized, defined and measured in Malaysia as the reinterpretation of the Poverty and Income distribution data over the last three decades shows that poverty in Malaysia retains much of its original characteristics and income distribution patterns show inter ethnic inequalities remaining and a worsening position for certain ethnic groups. The call for a paradigm shift is further reinforced by the new development direction that is encapsulated in the New Economic Model with its focus on inclusive development and the bottom 40% of the population. Malaysia has made numerous proclamations of its aspirations to achieve developed country status by 2020. While these aspirations are laudable, there are several issues that have to be resolved before the nation joins the ranks of developed countries. Among the pressing issues that need to be addressed

Addressing Poverty through Innovative Policies: A Review of the Malaysian Experience

Good health, education, housing and access to the basic needs of life are basic human rights which often the poor are deprived of. Combating poverty is therefore a policy driven approach which requires innovative planning and execution. Since independence in 1957, Malaysia's policy goal focused on developing the infrastructure and improving the agricultural sector of the country. However, the watershed event of May 13, 1969 clearly vilified all previous efforts and recognized the need for a better approach to address issues of poverty, income equality and other basic physical and human rights for national development. Thus, the four long term policies from the New Economic Policy (1971-1990) to the New Economic Model (2011- 2020) and the five-year development plans has been put in placed in order to address poverty issues. Under the policies, there were broad and specific approaches and affirmative programs to alleviate poverty in the country, while working towards making Malaysia a high income nation by 2020, as envisioned in Vision 2020. Each successive policies and development plans saw great improvements in nation building efforts to improve the wellbeing of the population. This paper traces briefly the history of poverty alleviation attempts in Malaysia and discusses the policies and their impacts on the economy and social wellbeing. Each of the policies has their strengths and weaknesses and this paper seeks to share some of the innovative ideas and series of economic reforms to bring Malaysia to the level it is today. The last leg of the journey to achieve Vision 2020 necessitates uplifting of the bottom 40% to the ‘middle income group’. It further concludes on the call for a more rigorous intervention from the social work perspective.

Poverty Reduction during 1971-2013 Periods: Success and its Recent Trends in Bangladesh

Global Journal of HUMAN-SOCIAL SCIENCE: E Economics Volume 14 Issue 5 Version 1.0 Year 2014, 2014

This paper analyses data on poverty for 1971-2013 periods and finds that, Bangladesh reduces national poverty by 55.82 percent during these periods. Moreover, nearly 44 percent people are found extremely poor who earn less than 1.25perdayand77percentpeoplearemoderatelypoorwhoearnlessthan1.25 per day and 77 percent people are moderately poor who earn less than 1.25perdayand77percentpeoplearemoderatelypoorwhoearnlessthan2 per day. Though, absolute income poverty declines but income inequality rises by 30 percent in these periods. However, different international indexes disclose that, Bangladesh also reduces human poverty. Bangladesh is no longer the member of ‘alarmingly hunger countries’ and will become the member of ‘Medium human development countries’ by 2014. Besides, about 58 percent people are found multi-dimensionally poor, who suffer from overlapping deprivations in health, education and standard of living. Finally, this paper makes a comparison between Bangladesh and other south Asian countries and finds that,Bangladesh has the highest level of poverty followed by India in this region. Keywords: poverty, income inequality, human development, population, bangladesh, south asia. GJHSS-E Classification : JEL Code: I32, O15, O53

Poverty Alleviation — A Push Towards Unsustainability in Bangladesh?

2005

Social, economic, educational and infrastructure development programs in Bangladesh, including national and international aid and grants, focus on the agenda of ‘poverty alleviation’. However, they are not performing well as social and environmental degradation is on the increase. The paper analyses the reasons for the failure of development programs from a sustainability point of view. Some explanations are provided through the views of Bangladeshi rural activists, including Baul philosophers. They cover: (1) exclusion of poor people from participation in development programs, especially in natural resource management; and (2) widespread corruption accompanying foreign aid. ’Moderate poverty’ is seen in Bangladeshi culture as acceptable given the country’s conditions. It actually promotes a more sustainable way of living. ‘Poverty’ should be seen as culturally embedded and within the context of population growth and sustainable consumerism. ‘Poverty alleviation’ as promoted in deve...

Poverty Eradication: Government Policies and Challenges to Eradicate Urban Poverty in Malaysia

Malaysia is moving forward to become an industrialized and developed nation by the year 2020. In line with this transformation, it faces challenges related to phenomena of urban environment. The migration of people from rural areas and international immigrants give a strain on the economy as well as the society. The government continues to implement appropriate strategies and programs by providing a variety of needs such as food, clothing, water, education and accesses to services such as health facilities and public transport since the 1970s. Although the programs succeeded in reducing the poverty rate from 21.3 percent in 1970 to 1.0 percent in 2012, there are still many things to be considered in order to overcome the new urban poverty phenomenon. Abstrak Malaysia meletakkan harapan yang sangat tinggi untuk menjadi sebuah negara maju pada tahun 2020. Seiring dengan itu, Malaysia berhadapan dengan cabaran yang berkaitan dengan fenomena persekitaran bandar. Penghijrahan penduduk lu...