In October 2017, I wrote an article in this newspaper titled “Ten ‘indie’ development indicators”. In that article, I borrowed from University of Chicago professor Chris Blattman who had a blog post titled, “Real World Development Indicators, version 2.0”, which was meant as an alternative to the common indicators of well-being in nations, such as gross domestic product (GDP), the Human Development Index or the Multidimensional Poverty Index.
The point of the article was to figure out, in a somewhat tongue-in-cheek manner, some better indicators for Malaysia’s economic development as opposed to the more popular ones such as GDP or even things like the unemployment rate. This is not to say that popular indicators are unimportant; rather, they are insufficient. And so, in a further adaptation of Blattman’s concept, I have proposed a further 10 “indie” development indicators. But first, as a recap, these were my initial 10:
1. Probability that cabinet ministers and senior government officials seek medical treatment in their own country
2. Probability that cabinet ministers and senior government officials send their children to public primary and secondary schools in their own country
3. Probability that upper-middle class (and above) Malaysians choose to pursue tertiary studies in local universities
4. Probability that a given Malaysian is trilingual
5. Probability that we do not look down on others for their poor English
6. Proportion of the population that has visited local museums and art galleries
7. Proportion of the population that becomes teachers, caregivers, social workers and other related occupations
8. Proportion of the population fined for double parking
9. Proportion of the population across all age groups that become actively involved in politics
10. Size of the gender gap in Malaysia
With that said, here are my further proposed 10. As before, my only real ground rule is that none of this should be self-reported survey data. We want to see the actions people actually take as opposed to what they say they will take.
1. Probability that all parliamentarians
(Dewan Rakyat and Dewan Negara) and state assemblymen send their children to public primary and secondary schools in their own constituency
Look, if we just made this a rule, it’d really be a concrete first step towards solving all of Malaysia’s education woes. Of course, we have a bunch of legislators who are, let’s say, overqualified age-wise for their kids to be at primary and secondary schools, but this would still be a start.
2. Ratio of policies implemented to policies announced
This is pretty straightforward. If we want to see what the government does as opposed to just what they said they’d do, this should always be a development indicator.
3. Which policies get implemented and which don’t
This is a corollary to point No 2 above. The idea is like this: If you want to know where someone’s priorities lie, look at their calendar (if possible). Similarly, if you really want to know what a government prioritises, look at the policies they actually implement, as opposed to the ones they just said they would.
4. Proportion of the population willing to forgo private vehicles
Transport makes up close to 30% of Malaysia’s carbon emissions. And, in some ways, it’s really hard to fault Malaysians when the public transport system is primarily concentrated in the Klang Valley (and even then, reliability and last-mile connectivity remain issues) and RON95 prices at the pump are cheaper than in Saudi Arabia.
5. Proportion of corporate social responsibility (CSR) budgets spent on social welfare
It’s certainly a good thing for everyone — corporates included — to get involved in protecting our fellow community members. But the truth is that if governments were good at providing adequate social welfare or if companies were better at providing decent jobs, there would be less need for charitable social welfare. To be clear, the fact that CSR budgets have to go to specific communities means that government social welfare is inadequate; no specific group should ever be allowed to fall through the cracks. And there is certainly an element of moral hazard if CSR activities continue to put Band-Aids on the failures of the government. Charities are important — they play an integral role in our society — but in the very best version of any society, they would be redundant. Or at the very least, they would be required only in extraordinary circumstances.
6. Proportion of social enterprises that just call themselves “enterprises”
Social enterprises are businesses that both try to make profits and create societal impact. Businesses that create societal impact go beyond having good environmental, social and governance (ESG) practices; ESG is “how” you operate and impact is “what” your business does. It would certainly be a very positive development if more and more businesses were, from the very start and from their very core, social enterprises such that the label “social” becomes redundant.
7. Proportion of economic activities whose prices have been adjusted for their carbon footprint
Carbon taxes and the purchase of carbon offsets are ways of pricing in the negative externality of carbon emissions into a given economic activity (a good or a service). For example, if I eat red meat, the production of which is typically very carbon-intensive, I should be required to pay for the carbon emissions generated by that red meat, which has historically never been priced. We are getting better at measuring carbon emissions and, soon, we should be able to properly put a carbon tax on every economic activity we do.
8. Number of times we have to tell richer countries that inequality cuts across time as well
Relating to point 7, many of the world’s developed countries, particularly in Europe and North America, have grown based on coal and colonialism. The negative externalities associated with coal and colonialism are massive and have never been priced into their development costs; this needs to change. An essentially free run of 250 years requires correction, especially for the countries that, at best, did not have that head start and, at worst, were completely exploited by the countries that had that head start. So the next time someone, especially from a rich country, says that the climate challenge will be won or lost in developing countries, we should tell them to shut the front door.
9. Frequency of water cuts in a year
Sorry, can’t help it. It does make me wonder what can realistically be done to protect the water sources at Sungai Semenyih (and others) and how pollution at those sources happens so regularly.
10. Number of politically bipartisan initiatives or bills
In reality, while there are certainly differences politically between many of us, there are also many things that we do similarly want. A sign of any maturing political environment is when we can really agree on very reasonable things and then pass bills accordingly instead of disagreeing for the sake of being disagreeable. It’s so exhausting.
And just like last time, a bonus one:
11. Bonus (taken from Blattman): Percentage of undergraduate students taking a real major, rather than development studies
Ouch.