Development Planning, Outline Perspective Plan, Eighth Malaysia Plan And Beyond

On 5 April 2001 and 23 April 2001, many Malaysians throughout the country and even foreigners, be they analysts, journalists and visitors from within or outside, would remember the launching of the country’s Third Outline Perspective Plan (OPP3) and the Eighth Malaysia Plan (8MP) respectively by the Right Honourable Prime Minister. The Perspective Plan also unveiled a new policy entitled “The National Vision Policy” (NVP). The OPP3 and the NVP cover a development plan period (8MP and 9MP) of ten years (2001-2010) where the focus, inter alia, is on ICT and the K-economy. To those already familiar with the country’s economic development and many other discerning Malaysian watchers, the forerunners to the OPP3 and NPV, were the OPP1 and NEP, 1971-1990 (the First Outline Perspective Plan and the very catchy phrase ‘New Economic Policy’) covering twenty years and the OPP2 and NDP, 1991-2000 (the Second Outline Perspective Plan and the National Development Policy).

The detailed objectives, programmes and projects, targets and financial implications of these Plans are readily available and can be sourced easily by readers, students and scholars. What needs to be pointed out are the significance of these Plans, how they have impacted on the growth and transformation of the country, and how new generations of Malaysians (including those in Sarawak) can continue to ensure and uphold that these Plans will be well-implemented. This is a question of sustainability. While development planning in many countries have mixed results, Malaysia has somehow been able to implement their development plans with total commitment, total participation, and almost total understanding. Preparing the five-year Development Plans or the 10-20 year Perspective Plans is now an exercise that is taken as seriously as the preparation of the nation’s Annual Budgets, or the five-yearly Parliamentary and State election exercises.

The Plans normally involve consultative effort in which the larger public views are solicited through the Executive branch (the Plan is then executed by the Civil Service), who subsequently prepare and translate the thoughts and views into pragmatic, doable and implementable projects, often with far-reaching development conse-quences - witness today the growth and prosperity of Malaysians in the various States vis-a-vis the other citizens of neighbouring countries.

And why are these Plans so unique, special and much awaited after a five or ten year timeframe? The Plan sets out the vision, direction, objectives, targets, programmes and projects. The Plan is a document, a blue-print, a roadmap, a programme of hopes, expectations and activities, matching economic and social objectives, which takes account of the multifarious demands of ethnically-mixed society, managed through the political process. In essence, the document is a socio-economic development plan balancing economic, social, cultural and practical realities of the country. After forty years of independence and development planning experiences, and through the past implementation of these Plans, Malaysia’s achievements have been touted as an inspirational model for many developing countries.

And what of development planning, which normally finds itself either as a small chapter or only a section in development textbooks? In Malaysia, development planning is both a science and an art. It is a science because one can actually study development planning using Malaysia’s forty years’ experiences to date. Along the way, Malaysian development planners have developed the necessary skills, tools, methodologies and techniques in a scientific way. It is an art because not only has Malaysians perfected their development planning skills in a scientific way; but are also gifted enough to put up the Plans often within a very short and tight timespan, not to mention with new sets of players and actors (i.e. the writers of the Plan), and come out with a very attractive document.

There has also been a proliferation of other Plans - Sectoral Plans, Privatization Master Plan, and so on. When the Asian financial crisis emerged in 1997, in the midst of the Seventh Malaysia Plan (7MP) implementation, Malaysia in fact responded promptly with the National Economic Recovery Plan (NERP). The NERP was in fact Malaysia’s own solution to the problem where others have resorted to the IMF palliative.

Our commentary will not be complete without making reference to the State’s own Development Plan. In a federal system of government with its hierarchies of governments (viz. federal, state and local), sub-national planning at the State level is an equally important exercise. While the National Development Plan sees things in a broader perspective, the State Development Plan provides further opportunities to have a relook and refocus on the unique and special needs of the State, given its vast geographical spread, sparse population, present state of infrastructure (relative to the more-developed infrastructures in Peninsular Malaysia), and the different socio-cultural milieu. The State Development Plan is a subset of the National Development Plan and is thus largely similar, but the approaches in tackling issues may differ. It should also be appropriately mentioned that there is a lot of complementarities and support between agencies (Federal and State) in implementing these projects, mindful of the fact that funds come from both sources - while the desired outcome is a progressive State in a developed Malaysia.

Finally, it is pertinent to point out that agencies at the State level would need to continually perfect their skills, capability and capacity in preparing as well as in executing the Plans. Thus government agencies at the divisional, district, sub-district and local authority levels must strengthen their capacities and capabilities in a similar manner to operationalize and execute the Plans in an efficient, effective and expeditious manner.