THE unity government of Malaysia has a totally different approach in addressing and eradicating the structural poverty issues in society once and for all. It seeks to achieve this through certain bold initiatives.
The plan is a bottom-up strategy to address the core issues of society with concrete steps to tackle poverty.
It seeks to improve sustainability, nurture unity, trust, respect and care for each other by ensuring social injustices are reduced, if not eliminated, as well as by adopting a zero-tolerance stance against corruption.
So, a ground-up approach was introduced through the concept of Malaysia Madani (Civil Malaysia), in which the core issues are targeted and where minimising poverty remains the ultimate goal.
Though Madani sounds like something related to Madina and that relates to Prophet Muhammad SAW and the model of social justice, Malaysia Madani stands for the six core concepts and values that sets the tone of progressive development.
The Madani concept targets continuous prosperity through pragmatic and time-tested innovative ideas, along with innovative planning and implementation of digital revolution tools and adoption of artificial intelligence at the core of its development.
At the same time, the Madani concept ensures respect for all races, including the deprived ones, and not isolating anyone, which can be achieved through trust-building efforts and by caring for all.
The Malaysia Madani government wants to go beyond problem-solving to ensure the creation of a peaceful mindset, where all potential elements are given an equal chance to do the utmost for the country.
In fact, the unity government wants to reform people to a pluralistic, coherent and conducive society that is geared towards an advanced notion of competing, in the true sense, with the rest of the world. The focus is to lay the foundation of a civilised and inclusive society where the majority are skilled to a high level of competence.
The lessons that many progressive and developing Muslim nations can look into is the need to instil critical thinking skills along with enhancing skills that go beyond cognitive thinking. All these are only possible when the basic needs, like hunger, poverty, basic health, housing and education, are fulfilled.
So, to have a civilised society, we have to ensure that all these yardsticks are fulfilled. If a country is plagued with corruption, financial mismanagement and lacks unity, then cleansing it is a difficult task for any government. It is an undertaking that will require much prudence and careful planning.
The main aim for development would be to understand the importance of having a give-and-take attitude, by sharing and caring, instilling love and being respectful to mankind.
That's the take, from Malaysia Madani, for the rest of the third world Muslim nations to emulate. And these efforts require time, effort, concentration, perseverance, determination and understanding.
And the targets can be achieved only when the leaders remain steadfast towards their goals and the country remains consistent and focused.
The writer is from the Islamic Business School, Universiti Utara Malaysia