Bridging the Urban Rural Divide for Social Justice
Although Malaysia has achieved stellar performance in reducing absolute poverty and bridging ethnic inequalities within a high growth environment, the rural-urban divide that we see today begs the question of whether inclusive growth has been realised. In other words, although Malaysia’s comprehensive development policies have achieved remarkable progress; one wonders if such growth has generated sufficient upward mobility for the poorer sections of society.
Accordingly, inclusive development is becoming one of the main agendas of global sustainable development. This is especially true at a time when the sustainable development goals (SDGs) are scheduled for adoption by the United Nations this year. A recently held roundtable discussion by Merdeka Award shed light on how the great rural-urban divide that we see today came about, and in this context identified some steps to be taken to bridge that gap.
Participating in the roundtable discussion were Dr Hezri Adnan, Tan Sri Professor Dato’ Dr. T. Marimuthu, Cynthia Ng, Ms Rikke Jarvad Netterstrom and Datuk Dr Denison Jayasooria. Moderated by Cynthia Ng, the discussion was broadcasted on Astro Awani on 3 May 2015.
Rural development stalling since the 1970s
For decades, the focus of federal economic planning has been largely biased towards urban areas, leading to the wide development gap that we see today. While provision of infrastructure such as access to public transport, roads, water, electricity, and other basic amenities are readily available in urban areas, rural areas are often neglected. Although positive attempts were made by former Prime Minister Tun Abdul Razak Hussein to industrialize small towns, agricultural intensive areas were overlooked.
A growing divide between rural and urban areas
Netterstrom pointed out that the next generation should look at ways to integrate culture with high income growth. Similarly, as every country needs a rural sector for sustainable agricultural production, the key would be to integrate rural development with the commercial sector.
Datuk Dr Denison Jayasooria added that while the government has performed well in reducing poverty in certain rural regions, the indigenous people of the land have been living at the margins experiencing the most deprivation. He also pointed out the need to address inclusive development within urban centres itself, as the experience of poverty is often worse in urban areas than rural. Typically, the urban poor have to cope with densely populated flats, unaffordable housing and lack of access to basic healthcare.
Lack of attention in developing the agricultural sector
As agricultural activities are usually concentrated in rural areas, one key challenge is to attract the young adults to stay in rural areas. However, the hurdle of providing basic amenities to rural region settlers is coupled with a lack of human capacity for this purpose. For example, there is a need for plantation companies to invest in capacity building among the local workforce.
Netterstrom found that a potential area for development is the ecosystem services sector, such as ecotourism in Sabah. Here, the key challenge would be to engage local communities in broadening business opportunities, to create a mutually beneficial relationship between existing local communities and corporate partners. Datuk Dr Denison Jayasooria provided another example from Nibong Tebal, where women received CSR funding for planting mangroves, from which different types of mangrove leaves could then be converted to tea, or packaged into jams.
Leveraging on local rural communities to create jobs
Dato’ Dr Marimuthu shared that there were existing federal initiatives which would identify local community products that could yield the best value add. These federal initiatives included bringing in government-linked corporations (GLC) to establish food processing industries in rural areas with local communities. Involving the non-GLC private sector in such ventures can be difficult, due to comparatively lower profit maximisation possibilities.
However, companies and local communities could potentially stand to forge a mutually beneficial relationship, where instead of spending large sums of money training local communities in producing local products, the company can be the marketing interface between buyers and local communities.
Universities and higher education institutions also have a role to play, as they would be able to effectively identify the optimal local community products to be commercialized.
“Green” as a buzzword for policy makers and corporate partners
It is ironic to observe that while environmental concerns in Malaysia are growing, there is a tendency to justify every development initiative as “green”, including potentially detrimental ones. An example is clearing large plots of land for “greener” factories, which leaves the environment worse-off as a whole. However, as Netterstrom pointed out, it is crucial to the discourse that we do not see a trade-off between development and environmental initiatives. A new middle path needs to be forged.
The extent of public engagement in policy making
Datuk Dr. Denison noted that the key problem for forest-based communities is that they are often marginalised due to their lack of awareness on land rights, more than because of a lack of public engagement. This is obvious when they become losers of business deals with private firms who engage them in rural projects. Dato’ Dr. Marimuthu acknowledged that there had not been any public consultation when it came to policy making. However, existing policies from the government although well-constructed, are lacking in terms of implementation.
Implementation of policies.
There is a palpable disconnect when it comes to federal-state relations. Aside from the often overlapping functions of federal and state bodies, the lack of a clear federal transfer mechanism to state governments hampers the state’s ability to implement good policies. As Dr Hezri Adnan noted, there is no shortage of international best practices, only a lack of effective Malaysian mechanisms to scale these practices.
It is clear that government policies play a tangible role in the development of a particular locality. However, although government policies can make or break rural-urban development, there is ample space for civil society organisations and the business sector to play a role.
The imbalance between rural and urban development implies that extra effort is needed to scale the gap, to bring growth of rural communities in tandem with its urban counterparts. At the same time, bringing the urban poor into the stream of inclusive growth is also necessary.
Hence, there is a need to recalibrate and strengthen institutions and policies in such a way where energies can be devoted to bring about social justice through simple, creative and innovative means.
Beyond poverty alleviation programmes and charity, government agencies, civil society organisations and social enterprises need to move towards capacity building and the creation of local regional markets to build sustainable rural sectors that could one day grow in tandem with its urban counterparts.
