The experience of the Consumers' Association of Penang, Malaysia

Abstract

The poor as victims of development. In many Third World countries, 'development' is taking place at a rapid pace. However, many social scientists and economists have serious doubts as to whether the present model of development is really bene- ficial to the poor. All too often, 'development projects' are selected by governments to introduce symbols of ultra-modernism (super-highways, 60-storey skyscrappers, multi-million-dollar dams) which have little meaning to the lives of the rural poor. Even more alarming is the fact that millions of farmers and food producers are being pushed aside, marginalised and displaced for the sake of 'development'. In Brazil's Amazon jungle, hundreds of thousands of native people are being forced out of their homelands as forests are logged. Hundreds of traditional fishing com- munities in South and South-east Asia are suffering from dwindling incomes as high-powered trawler boats scoop up the best part of the catch. Grazing land and food-producing farms are being demolished on a large scale to make way for dams, factory zones, western-style subur- ban housing estates and road construction.