Achieving Developed Nation Status (updated)

Malaysia wants to be a developed nation by 2020. I hate to spoil the party but I doubt the present administration knows what a developed country is. It seems that all our Prime Ministers think tall buildings represent development. The Petronas Twin Towers and KLIA are amongst the things often touted as our symbols of development. To me they are nothing more than just mere monuments and the thing with monuments is that anyone with power and/or money can build them.

Kofi Annan, former Secretary General of the United Nations, defined a developed country as follows: "A developed country is one that allows all its citizens to enjoy a free and healthy life in a safe environment.”

I like Mr Annan’s definition but allow me to further refine the definition; "A developed country is one that allows all its citizens to enjoy a free and healthy life in a safe environment, where all the citizens are given freedom to acquire knowledge and freely express themselves based on the knowledge acquired. A developed country is where the rule of law is respected and uncivilised behaviour is not tolerated.”

However, according to the United Nations Statistics Division, there is no established convention for the designation of "developed" and "developing" countries or areas in the United Nations system. It notes that the designations "developed" and "developing" are intended for statistical convenience and do not necessarily express a judgement about the stage reached by a particular country or area in the development process. (source: Wikipedia)

So how do we determine our status? Khir Toyo once proudly declared Selangor a developed state, published in The Star on 13 July 2005. In the article, Khir Toyo has indirectly admitted that the declaration will be done in a do-it-yourself fashion, as he claims that “There is no one body that ascertains or accredits any nation as a developed nation.”

Although he is right in saying no one body that ascertains or accredits any nation as developed but couldn’t he at least use common sense when making such a declaration? At least try to benchmark the state with internationally recognised developed states like Singapore or Germany for example.  

I think the first step towards achieving developed status is intellectual development. Educated citizens will ensure the rule of law is respected. It may not be adhered to by 100 per cent of the population but at least the number of ignorant people will be very small. Education also make a person more civilised, more cultured and as a result widespread bad behaviour will be a thing of the past. Unruly behaviour will no doubt still exist but the incidence will be less as people would be more embarrassed to misbehave. Civilizations are built when the citizenry are enlightened and enlightenment comes from education.

To be developed nation, proper basic infrastructure must first be in place. By basic infrastructure I mean not only roads, electricity, sewerage and clean water but also  and most importantly, a developed and unbiased education system.

A developed nation must have a 100 per cent (or at least very close to 100 per cent) literate population. Basic medical and dental services must be easily and immediately accessible to all citizens. Quality education to the highest level must be accorded to everyone interested and qualified. Intellectual freedom must be allowed. The judiciary must be impartial and upholds the rule of law without fear or favour. Rule of law must be respected. Corruption and abuse of power must not exist. Public services like transportation, garbage collection, sewerage must be efficient and well managed. Efficient and effective policing and legal system must be present to keep crime low or better still practically non-existent.

Sounds very utopian eh? We should strive for perfection; aren’t we told from very young that we should always aim high?

We cannot claim to be developed by just building mega towers. We should only industrialise ourselves after we have developed our human capital. What is the point of having a national automotive industry if it ends up being a mere car assembler? We must first ensure the population gets adequate education in any field they wish. We then should find our niche and work towards perfecting it.

Let’s start our journey towards developed status by properly educating ourselves. Let’s first be civilised. We cannot be developed if we continue to break traffic rules, disregard no entry and one way signs, break speed limits and jump traffic lights. Citizens of developed nations do not litter and would not smoke in non-smoking areas.


Let's first be civilised, then we can talk about being developed.