Objectives and Context
Malaysia is an affluent developing country, with one of the worlds most open economies and a strong history of economic growth. The national poverty rate halved between 1990 and 1999, and currently stands at approximately 5%. Nevertheless, progress in poverty reduction has been uneven across the country. Malaysia’s dramatic geography isolates many rural communities, and many indigenous and ethnic groups have been left behind by development programmes, a problem that can be exacerbated by local political dynamics and naiveté. Thus, although Malaysia has come close to ending extreme poverty, ‘red pockets’ of hard-core rural poverty remain, especially among the geographically remote indigenous communities of Sabah, and Sarawak. These groups can sustain internal poverty rates as high as 20%, a figure less popular with many Malaysian political actors than the national average of 5%. Malaysia has strong development ambitions, however, aiming to become a fully developed country by 2020, and having committed itself to the total eradication of hard-core poverty by 2009. In light of this, the UNDP began to lobby the Malaysian government to address the ‘red pockets’ in poverty reduction in its development planning.
Links, Strategies and Tools
UNDP Malaysia promoted human rights principles while preparing and drafting the National MDG Report. Advocating for equality and non-discrimination to government counterparts in this context led naturally to further advocacy. As part of the advocacy process, UNDP disaggregated the MDG indicators used in the MDG Report. These revealed sharp spatial and ethnic differentials in social, health and economic outcomes—‘red pockets’ of poverty.
UNDP used a flexible advocacy strategy and strategic partnerships to draw political attention to these “red pockets.” By partnering with the national university's Faculty of Economics, the UNDP’s arguments based on statistics and hard data gained legitimacy. Partnering with the National Human Rights Commission, simultaneously increased the political legitimacy of advocacy in some quarters, while decreasing political legitimacy in others. This necessitated a flexible advocacy strategy that focused on a variety of actors, made use of a variety of strategies and fora, and evolved with changes in context. UNDP specifically targeted political actors for informal advocacy as a means of building alliances within government, made formal submissions to the Economic Planning Unit with whom UNDP had cooperated in preparing the MDG report, and who was then drafting the national development plan, and regularly utilized popular media at events such as the opening of public services or other development programmes, to focus public debate and draw attention to ‘red pockets’. Each context thus required a distinct strategy and approach. When advocating to back-bench parliamentarians, for example, hard data, careful argumentation and rhetoric was essential, while other strategies proved more successful at media events, or in submissions to the national Economic Planning Unit.
Process and Status
UNDP Malaysia began to collaborate with the Economics Faculty at the National University of Malaysia and the National Human Rights Commission while preparing the National MDG Report which was released in January 2005. For the next ½ year, UNDP Malaysia advocated with its partners in a variety of fora, and made formal submissions to the Economic Planning Unit. The Economic Planning Unit began drafting the 9th Malaysia 5 Year Development Plan at roughly the same time. The actual disaggregation of MDG indicators had been performed by UNDP statisticians working with data from the MDG Report. They had previously worked for government and were supported by the Economics Faculty. These cumulative efforts were reflected in the 9th Malaysian 5 year plan, released in April 2006.
Impact
The 9th Malaysian 5 Year Plan specifically addressed the plight of indigenous peoples for the first time, and included “ambitious poverty and equity targets.” Though no concrete programmes have yet been initiated, novel budgetary allocations have been made to the Sarawak and Sabah, regions, home to groups highlighted as marginalized in UNDP’s lobbying efforts. A number of governmental actors are working hard to target the disadvantaged groups in programming, moreover, and approaching the UNDP for help in doing so. That said, there are no clear answers for how to address the plight of indigenous and rural communities living in Malaysia’s ‘red pockets,’ and complex practical and legal issues, such as land rights, pose significant challenges to these development initiatives. The UNDP’s lobbying efforts have nevertheless been successful in as much as these groups have now found a place on the national development agenda.Challenges
The primary challenge facing the UNDP Malaysia’s advocacy lay in convincing government officials that a low absolute poverty rate was not satisfactory from a development point of view. Being an affluent country, Malaysian politicians tend to be proud of the country’s low absolute poverty rate, and unaccustomed to working with development problems of extreme poverty. The ‘hard evidence’ of disaggregated statistics was essential in this regard.
Lessons Learned
UNDP Malaysia considers partnerships to have been essential to the success of their advocacy, although the benefits of partnerships are often not clear cut. UNDP’s partnership with the National Human Rights Commission (SHUKAM) is an example of how a partnership can be both empowering and limiting. SHUKAM was a relatively new body at the time, and as a human rights body, was viewed by many government representatives with suspicion. Simultaneously, its status as a governmental body gave the UNDP’s human rights advocacy a necessary legitimacy with parliamentarians.
Similarly, partnering with the National University gave the UNDP a methodological legitimacy necessary to convince sceptical members of government. The country office notes that it was essential to use hard evidence and concrete statistics. Loose terms such as ‘vulnerable groups’ were often rejected by politicians out of hand. UNDP also found that it was important to emphasise the positive and negative implications of disaggregation equally, in order not to “turn-off” sceptics.
Most importantly, the UNDP notes that they learned the importance of adapting strategy to the dynamic political context in which they were operating. UNDP used different advocacy fora and media mechanisms, and emphasized different partnerships, depending on the current political context.
