Malaysia has made outstanding progress in reducing extreme monetary poverty, with merely less than one percent of households living below the national poverty line, says the World Bank.

The World Bank’s Global Knowledge and Research Hub in Malaysia senior economist, Kenneth Simler, said in 1970 almost half of the population lived below the national poverty line, which is almost equal to the international poverty line of about RM100 per person per month.

“Using the higher threshold of the median national poverty line used in upper-middle-income countries (about RM292 per person per month), Malaysia’s poverty rate has declined from 17 percent in 2008 to 2.7 percent in 2015,” he said in a statement in Kuala Lumpur today.

The statement was issued in conjunction with the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty whereby since 1992, Oct 17 has been marked as the day for the world to engage on the progress made and actions needed to end poverty.

However, Simler said against the high-income and developed country standards that Malaysia aspires to achieve, existing gaps and vulnerabilities should not be easily dismissed as isolated cases.

In giving an example, he said a study by Malaysia’s Institute for Public Health in 2016 found that 20.7 percent of children are nutritionally stunted, whereby significant rates of stunting were found in cities as well as rural areas, and across all states, all ethnicities, and all levels of income and maternal education.

“Going forward, social policies and interventions could be made more effective by tailoring them better to people’s living conditions.

“One case in point is the Cost of Living Aid (BSH) cash transfer program. Its impact and cost-efficiency could surpass the effectiveness of past programmes by adjusting eligibility criteria and benefit levels to account for household size and composition, as well as differences in the cost of living by state and urban/rural areas,” he added.

In conclusion, Simler said the country was well-poised to grow a larger and more resilient middle class, which itself could be an engine of future growth and a champion for better governance and increased accountability.

He said this commitment to inclusiveness in the new Malaysia as well as to tackling prevailing gaps and vulnerabilities would eradicate poverty and improve the standards of living for all Malaysians.

- Bernama