George Town

Penang state is located in Peninsular Malaysia and is one of the most urbanized and economically developed states in the country. The state is divided between Penang Island and Sebarang Perai (the mainland), each governed by its own municipal council: Majlis Bandaraya Pulau Pinang (MBPP) in the Island and Majlis Perbandaran Seberang Perai (MPSP) on the mainland.

Compensating for a lack of natural resources, Penang’s economy is heavily based on manufacturing – the state is home to a thriving semiconductor industry – and tourism (driven by George Town’s status as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in conjunction with Malacca). Because Penang was historically a free port (until 1969), the island has developed into an ethnically and racially diverse community, with 41.7% ethnic Chinese, 41.3% Malay, and 9.8% Indian Malaysian.

The state’s total population is currently estimated at 1.6 million. Since 2008, Penang’s state government and local municipal councils have been controlled by the Democratic Action Party (DAP), a center-left political party. DAP is a minority party in the national parliament, which is ruled by the United Malays National Organization and its coalition. The political and ethnic differences between Penang, its surrounding states, and the national government, as well as Penang’s strong civil society, present a unique environment for the implementation of public policy innovations. Some of the most relevant ongoing policy issues in the state include the development and implementation of a new transportation master plan–with critics questioning its scale and priorities; development on the Penang Hill–raising questions about its environmental and social impact; and housing affordability and displacement–with a number of communities facing evictions to give way to new development. Challenges related to limited revenue sources, inadequate state planning capacity, and constrained collaboration with the federal government crosscut all these policy discussions.

How, and to what extent, does the federal government engage the local population in transportation planning in Penang?

Themes

Disaster Response, Flood, Resilience, multi-level governance

Background

Malaysian states have limited revenue sources available to them since they can only raise funds through real estate taxes, licensing, hotel taxes, and forestry. The state government has a limited annual budget of approximately RM1bn. The centralized nature of planning in Malaysia makes local planning very challenging. For instance, the state has almost no jurisdiction over the planning and operations of public transit systems (e.g. Rapid Penang) or major roads. This imposes additional constraints on efforts to coordinate local land use changes through Transit-Oriented Development. In addition, the state does not have the authority to add, reduce or relocate bus stops or lines, or modify service frequencies to match local travel patterns and demands. Larger scale projects such as the Penang Airport expansion and Light Rail Transit (LRT) that have been talked about as a way to facilitate economic development have yet to receive federal funding.

In 2010, the state government employed Halcrow to produce the Transport Master Plan (TMP), which was finalized in 2012. Components of the TMP were tendered out, and the winning tender for the public transit system proposed monorail, rather than trams (as suggested by the Halcrow TMP), partly to avoid reducing road capacity. Due to the state’s budgetary constraints and the inherent challenges of intergovernmental relations related to being led by the opposition party, the government plans to self-fund projects under the TMP through selling development rights for three reclaimed islands to the south of Penang Island for RM27 billion.

Questions have been raised regarding the plan’s population forecast and travel demand estimates, as well as its emphasis on private automobile travel over public transit. In addition, the TMP does not provide an evaluation of the proposal based on accessibility measures or last-mile connections. Nor does it consider other low-emission options such as Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), electric vehicles or shared-vehicles.

A scholar could consider several other questions as off-shoots of the main research question:

  • How can the experience of land reclamation to the north of the island help inform planned reclamation to the south? For example, are there mechanisms or processes that can be put in place to reduce detrimental environmental impacts of reclamation or help reduce any negative social and economic impacts to local fishing communities along the coast.
  • Might developing on the mainland or other fundraising methods become a viable substitute for developing on the three reclaimed islands?

Research Design

Begin the research by understanding the inception, process and stakeholder involvement in the Transportation Master Plan. Collect articles and blog posts written by local NGOs on the Transport Master Plan. Interview a member of the City Council, its involvement in setting local policies, land use decisions and land-swap negotiations, as well as its relationship with the state government. Interview officials from the state government to understand the assumptions and influences behind the reclamation proposal, and determine if alternative scenarios exist or were considered. Map various stakeholder groups across both public and private sectors, along with their core interests, ties and shared priorities. Look especially for affiliations between government agencies and contractors and developers.

Potential Partners

  • Penang Institute (http://penanginstitute.org/v3/home/) The Penang Institute is the state government’s public policy think tank.
  • Penang Forum (http://penangforum.net/) The Penang Forum is a loose coalition of civil society groups based in Penang, Malaysia that advocates for a broad range of issues related to sustainable urban planning and development.

What strategies have nonprofit civil society organizations adopted to influence planning and increase government accountability with regard to urban development projects? How do these organizations deal with the challenges of political representation and inclusiveness in an ethnically and culturally diverse society?

Themes

Civil society participation and planning

Background

Fueled by a generally more liberal and progressive sociopolitical environment, civil society organizations have a strong history of political participation in Penang relative to other regions in Malaysia. Particularly since the 1940’s and 1950’s, when the Penang’s secession movement spurred a new wave of political activism, a variety of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), political coalitions, and social movements have established roots in the region, including international organizations such as Amnesty International and Friends of the Earth, which maintain branches in Penang. Non-profit organizations such as the Penang Heritage Trust, the Consumers’ Association of Penang (CAP), and Aliran have demonstrated in the past their ability to influence decision-making and shape political priorities through coordinated efforts—most notably in the 1990s Penang Hill Campaign, which successfully stopped the development of an environmentally and culturally hazardous tourist resort on the Hill.

Penang’s robust civil society and current political and economic context offer a unique setting to explore how the nonprofit sector can contribute to enhanced governance arrangements for policy-making and implementation, as well as pressure for greater government accountability and responsiveness. Although civil society groups played an important role in helping the opposition party (the Democratic Action Party) win the elections in 2008 (Weiss 2009), the relationship between the nonprofit sector and the new government has been ambiguous.

On the one hand, non-profit organizations have been collaborating with the state government to deliver services and provide support in areas where government capacity is lacking. Examples of such governance arrangements include:

  • Community-led solid waste management and recycling initiatives such as the volunteer-run initiative by the Tzu Chi Merit Society Recycling Center (Butterworth).
  • A collaboration between the CAP and the state government to preserve and restore mangroves around Penang Island. In the latter case, however, collaboration was short-lived. The government tapped the CAP for its know-how, but later decided to outsource restoration efforts to the private sector rather than relying on community-based efforts. These examples provide an opportunity to investigate what factors facilitate or constrain collaboration between the nonprofit sector and local government, especially in the long term.

On the other hand, the current government, while better than the previous State administration at engaging civil society organizations, is still ambivalent over the process and has a long way to go to achieve genuine public consultation and participatory decision-making on pressing issues such as new proposed hill development, reclamation, and improvements in mobility. Groups such as Aliran, the CAP, and the Penang Forum coalition have been organizing around plans to help affected communities voice their concerns, systematize the environmental and social impact assessments of projects, and pressing the state government for greater accountability. The ongoing debates about these developments offer an opportunity to learn about the strategies civil society groups have adopted to pressure for greater accountability as well as to represent or empower different community voices.

Research Design

A scholar could focus on ongoing civil society engagement in the new Transportation Master Plan and the Penang Hill development to tease out different strategies for pressuring the government and amplifying community voices. Which channels or spaces do NGOs and other nonprofit groups find most effective for voicing demands and exerting pressure on the state government? How do they work with communities affected by development to amplify their voices? The scholar could start by mapping and interviewing the relevant nonprofit organizations and groups involved in the discussions surrounding the transportation master plan and development on the Penang Hill. The CAP and Aliran, two of the oldest and most influential civil society organizations in Penang, could serve as starting points and indicate other relevant actors who ought to be contacted (i.e., snowball sampling strategy). The research would also benefit from a historical analysis of civil society activism in Penang, particularly focusing on how the relationship between state government and civil society has changed over the decades and how past relationships are affecting current organizational strategies. This analysis can also draw on the literature about collective action and civil society, as well as political representation.

Potential Partners

  • Aliran (http://aliran.com/) – Aliran is a non-profit organization formed in the 1970s to raise awareness and mobilize people around diverse issues, including human rights, sustainability, and Malaysian politics. In addition to organizing campaigns, they maintain an active online forum with opinion articles, newsletters, and public statements on social justice issues in Penang.
  • Consumers’ Association of Penang (http://www.consumer.org.my/) – The CAP is one of the oldest and most influential civil society organizations in Penang. Their work currently extends beyond consumer rights, encompassing issues of environmental protection and social justice. One of the main topics on their agenda at the moment is climate change adaptation. Their work also involves assisting communities adversely affected by development in voicing their concerns and needs.

Additional Resources

  • Penang Monthly. “A city status and its civil society.” http://penangmonthly.com/a-citys-status-and-its-civil-society/
  • Brinkerhoff and Brinkerhoff. 2002. “Government-nonprofit relations in comparative perspective: evolutions, themes and new directions.” Public Admin. Dev. 22, 3–18.
  • Meredith Weiss. 2009. “Edging towards a new politics in Malaysia?” http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/ as.2009.49.5.741?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
  • Garry Rodan. 2013. “Civil society activism and political parties in Malaysia: differences over local representation.” http://www. tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13510347.2013.878331?journalCode=fdem20
  • James Jesudason. 2008. “Statist democracy and the limits to civil society in Malaysia.” http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/ abs/10.1080/14662049508447708?journalCode=fccp19http://www.wccpenang.org/about/