Poverty in Malaysia and Thailand

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Other than that, Singapore also have Destitute Persons Act. Several acts to prevent people from begging, selling tissues and collection boxes to sell. According to The Online Citizen (2013), there are also news that senior citizen commit suicide due to high medical cost in order to reduce the burden for her parents. Lim Swee Say, People Action Party (PAP) candidate had said “Can die, cannot sick” is no longer true.” In this statement, it clearly shows out healthcare cost is very high in Singapore.

Reasons of Poverty in Malaysia and Thailand

- Malaysia

According to Musalmah Johan (2006), Malaysia had achieved outstanding progress in eradicating poverty after introduction of the New Economic Policy (NEP). However, the incidence of poverty has always in some corner around the country.

- Malaysia is facing the incidence of poverty majority in the rural areas. Low level of education or skills, lack of employment opportunities, low wages, large family size and lack basic amenities.

- The migration of low-income groups from rural into urbans area, the influx of foreign workers and the increase in unemployment had contributed to the percentage of urban poverty in Malaysia.

- Thailand

The Borgen Project (2015) had listed following reasons of poverty in Thailand.

- Failure of Thai government in providing social safety when bringing the country into rapid growth and industrialisation. The government makes the implementation of financial and industrial reforms and ignored the formulating and implication of a comprehensive social service program to protect unprepared sectors from negative effects of rapid growth in industrialisation. Experts have expressed if Thai authorities given the same attention to the social sector, it might have even surpassed its current development and would have ensured its future development with a steady source of well-educated and multi-skilled labour as it shifts to technologically sophisticated industries.

- Weak educational system in the country. Inferior and inadequate education is the main reason of the growing income gap between city dwellers and villagers. As poverty in the rural areas worsened, many rural folk could not afford to send their children beyond the 6 years of compulsory schooling, making them unqualified for the higher paying jobs in the manufacturing and service sectors. As a consequence, these families were trapped in the vicious cycle of poverty where living conditions of the succeeding generations do not improve due to lack of education.

- Failure of the government to implement agricultural land reform policies. This failure has resulted in insecure land ownership and increasing tenancy, or production on rented land. As the population increased, people in the rural areas encroached into the forest areas to settle and plant. After several years of residence in these areas, they claim illegal ownership of the land which results in periodic conflicts with government authorities. Due to the government's refusal to issue land titles to legalise the ownership of the land to the farmers who are tilling it, rural workers lack the proper legal documents to secure agricultural support such as credit facilities and technical support and have no security of ownership over the land. This leads to low productivity from the land.

- Not only that but also the increase in the number of farm tenants who till other peoples' land because they either have no land of their own or because they had to sell their own land to pay off accumulated debts.

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1.0 Poverty in Thailand

Among countries in Southeast Asia, Thailand is the most notable exception to the general pattern of poverty targeting. The introduction of non-contributory health and pension programmes has greatly expanded social protection coverage. Anti-poverty policies were first clearly stated in the Fifth National Economic and Social Development Plan (1982-1986). Since then, poverty-reduction policy has become one of the major targets of the Plans. Policies implemented during the current plan, 11th Plan (2012-2016) to combat poverty include measures to reduce living expenses.

1.1 Policies used in Thailand

- Japan Fund for Poverty Reduction (JFPR) and Asian Development Bank (ADB)

Established in May 2000, the Japan Fund for Poverty Reduction (JFPR) provides direct grant assistance to the poorest and most vulnerable groups in developing member countries (DMCs) of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) while fostering long-term social and economic development. The grants target poverty reduction initiatives with the direct participation of nongovernment organizations (NGOs), community groups, and civil society. As of 31 December 2013, the Government of Japan has contributed a total of $615 million. In the same year, Thailand had received two technical assistance grants to support water and flood management, and to assist with accounting and financial management reform in the railway sector. The grants were jointly launched by the ADB’s Thailand Resident Mission, Thailand’s Ministry of Finance and the Embassy of Japan.

One grant consists of $1.5 million for project on Strengthening Integrated Water and Flood Management Implementation, which will be implemented from 2013-2015 and aims to help develop guidelines, checklists and information management systems to monitor and evaluate the implementation and impact of flood management in Thailand. The second grant involves $0.95 million to enhance the country’s economic competitiveness by improving railway sector performance. It will assist the improvement of accounting and financial information systems for the State Railway of Thailand, and aims to support the Government’s commitments to reforming the rail sector, including its goal of increasing the share of rail in freight transport from 2% to 8% by 2020. The railway reform also aims to reduce Thailand’s dependency on fossil fuels and road freight, thereby reducing the country’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

In year 2016, Thailand government received a US$1 million technical assistance to help improve the country’s overall water resource management efficiency, starting from river basin level, as well as strengthen capacity development for river basin integrated planning in the country. The project is aligned with the recently approved national water resource management strategic plan of the Thai government,