A STUDY ON DEVELOPING A MONITORING SYSTEM FOR THE BIMP-EAGA REGION

Abstract

BIMP-EAGA, which stands for Brunei Darussalam-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines East ASEAN Growth Area (BIMP-EAGA), is Asia’s largest regional grouping. One of the main purposes of setting up BIMP-EAGA is to address the socio-economic development of the less developed and marginalized areas of the four member countries. Thus, it is important to develop a poverty monitoring system for the region and thereafter, determine the progress in poverty eradication programmes.However, prior to the development of a poverty monitoring system, the definition of poverty for this region has to be identified and standardized for the four countries. This exploratory study will be based on qualitative research methodology given that there has not been any prior study on poverty monitoring for the BIMP-EAGA region. From a total of 11 focus areas, 7 focus areas have been selected for this study. Areas selected are Brunei Darussalam, Sulawesi and Kalimantan (Indonesia), Sabah and Sarawak (Malaysia), and Mindanao and Palawan (Philippines). The results for incidence of poverty for the selected areas in Malaysia (between 5.3% and 19.7% in 2009) and Indonesia (between 10.1% and 17.9% in 2007) show significant improvement since 2004. The results for Philippine range between 37.6% and 40.8% in 2006. All available data on Brunei Darussalam show none of its citizens are living in poverty.