Poverty - is the state of one who lacks a certain amount of material possessions or money.

Poverty had been mostly accepted as inevitable as traditional modes of production were insufficient to give an entire population a comfortable standard of living.

Poverty also encompasses low levels of health and education, poor access to clean water and sanitation, inadequate physical security, lack of voice, and insufficient capacity and opportunity to better one’s life.

1. United Nations: A denial of choices and opportunities, a violation of human dignity. It means lack of basic capacity to participate effectively in society.

2. World Bank: Deprivation in well-being, and comprises many dimensions. It includes low incomes and the inability to acquire the basic goods and services necessary for survival with dignity.

1. Absolute poverty: is measured in terms of the Poverty Line Income (PLI). A condition in which the gross monthly income of a household is insufficient to purchase certain minimum necessities of life (clothing, rent, fuel).

2. Relative poverty: Defined in terms of inequality between groups and is measured by using income disparity ratio of income group ethnic urban and rural. As the proportion of household earning in incomes less than half the mean or median income.

3. Hardcore poverty: Introduced in 1989 to give special emphasis to the needs of the very poor. Household whose gross monthly incomes were below half the PLI were classified as hardcore poor.

Determining the poverty line is usually done by finding the total cost of all the essential resources that an average human adult consumes in one year.

Both absolute and relative poverty measures are usually based on a person's yearly income and frequently take no account of total wealth.

STANDARD MEASUREMENT: 1. Extreme Poverty: less than US$1.25 per day.2. Moderate Poverty: less than $2 a day.

1. Health – low life expectancy, diseases. 2. Hunger – famine, malnutrition,

starvation. 3. Housing – slumps, homeless, street

child. 4. Violence – human trafficking,

prostitution, slavery.5. Education – school dropout, juvenile

delinquencies.

1. Life Expectancy.2. Child Mortality.3. Literacy.4. Proportion of the population to the access

of:a) Clean water.b) Electricity.c) Transportation & telecommunication.d) Recreation, Entertainment, Education & Cultural

Services.e) Medical Care & Health Expenses.

Causes: 1. Is a rural phenomenon and agricultural biased.

1. The majority of rural household are involved in small scale agricultural production and paid agricultural workers.

2. Commodity prices fluctuates more often compare to manufacturing goods.

2. The rapid rate of industrialization in the country.3. Unbalanced development between urban and rural

areas.4. Educational standards among children of the poor

are low thus they unable to get better paid jobs.5. Rural family had more family members.

Strategies:1.To modernize their traditional methods of

production2.Providing them with support and

opportunities to be involved in modern farming and value-added processing of agricultural produces

3.Be involved in non-farm or off-farm activities of employment

A result of the crisis was from the urban areas where reduction in economic activities in the construction and manufacturing sector resulted in retrenchment and unemployment and inflation were greater.

The conceptualization of poor household on the basis of a single poverty line.

Income for the rural and urban areas will underestimate the scale of urban poverty and exclude large numbers of the poor from policies and program.

Causes:1.High cost of living in urban areas.2.Some have little access to basic goods and

amenities such as electricity, piped water.3. Increased cost in basic goods and

amenities.4.Lack of job opportunities in the rural areas

and housing problems in town.

Strategy:1.Housing2. Job opportunities3.Educational facilities4.Better town planning

The incidence of poverty is based on the poverty line income (PLI).

The PLI is defined as an income sufficient to purchase a minimum basket of food to maintain household members in good nutritional health and other basic needs (minimum level of income needed to buy the basic necessities of life).

The PLI is updated annually of the Consumer Price Index (CPI).

The main strategy for poverty eradication was providing employment opportunities in higher-paying job, while welfare handouts were reserved for the aged and disabled who could not find employment.

Since the poor were largely engaged in agriculture, they were encouraged to be involved in modern farming and non-farm activities.

1. Resettling the landless and those with uneconomic holdings in new land development schemes. The settlers were provided with single unit houses complete with piped water and electricity.

2. Undertaking in-situ development of existing agricultural land through rehabilitation and consolidation of the land, replanting of old commercial crops with new higher-yielding clones and better planting techniques.

3. Integrating agricultural and rural development with downstream processing of farm products and encouraging village industries and rural entrepreneurship to generate additional sources of income

4. Introducing double-cropping or off-season cropping for paddy, inter-cropping and mixed farming on the same plots of land to supplement the income derived from main crops.

5. Establishing farmers’ markets in urban centers so that farm produce can be sold directly and fetch better prices.

6. Providing training and education on topics pertaining to farming as well as work attitudes and values to motivate participants to become more productive farmers.

7. Providing industrial and vocational training for the rural manpower, coupled with credit facilities and related support, to enabled them to be employed in non-farm occupations or start their own business in rural areas and urban centers.

8. Improving educational access as well as providing textbooks and financial assistance to children of poor household

9. Providing infrastructure and social amenities as part of a broader program to improve the quality of life of all Malaysians. For the rural population, include the provision of potable and piped water, electricity, roads, medical and health services and schools, including rural hostels.

The impact of 1997 & 2008 crises has been most critical on urban poor, the near poor and migrant workers all of whom have been effected by contraction in employment, escalating food prices and inflation.

Impacts:1. Increasing unemployment.2. Retrenchment.

New forms of poverty have emerged in the country as a result of rapid economic growth and the development process itself.

The dynamic changes created by the process of economic transformation have resulted in social consequences and increasing poverty levels for vulnerable groups that include:1. Single female-headed households.2. Migrant workers.3. Unskilled workers.4. The ‘Orang Asli’,5. Indigenous people of East Malaysia.6. The poor and elderly.

The new millennium poses challenges for health and education, which are two significant dimensions of human resource development.

The challenge:1. Escalating drug cost.2. Changing decease patterns.3. Increasing specialization in medical services.4. Rising wages and space costs.

1. The human resource development should be the thrust in the future efforts at eradicating poverty in Malaysia.

2. Policies and programmes must be consistent with effort to eradicate poverty.

3. Experience in many other LDCs, Taiwan and South Korea, for example, have shown that non-farm income have contributed significantly to the higher income groups of rural household.

4. The incidence of poverty is high among paddy planters, coconut and rubber smallholders in this country.

1. Budget constraints.2. Allocations are not reaching the

poor.3. Mentality of the poor.4. Unsuccessful implementation of the

policy.5. External factors – global economic

crisis, natural disasters.

1. Urbanization/modernization of rural areas.

2. Economic shift (agriculture to industrialization).

3. Education/healthy living.