TITLE: CHALLENGES TO ELIMINATE POVERTY DURING

COVID-19 PANDEMIC IN MALAYSIA

With the appearance of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), containing 17 natural,

financial, and social destinations, Malaysia should figure out what would stop the execution

of SDG. One of the important goals is to annihilating poverty. Annihilating poverty in the

entirety of its structures is probably the best test confronting humanity, especially during the

pandemic. As the pandemic has been exceptionally pitiless to poor people and the helpless,

that implements SDG getting harder. This year, unexpectedly since 1998, the total populace's

extent of living in outrageous destitution is relied upon to increment. In its worldwide 2020

Poverty and Shared Prosperity Report, the World Bank gauges that 88 million to 115 million

individuals will be into extraordinary destitution. Same goes to Malaysia, Malaysia also has

done similarly well in controlling the spread of the pandemic. However, reflecting the

circumstance worldwide, everybody in Malaysia has been influenced, especially the B40 and

those generally powerless and battling to make a decent living before the pandemic. Thus,

pandemic impacts have set Malaysians—the helpless and the pandemic low — in an

incredibly precarious position.

As covid-19 infection diseases rising, governments are scrambling to adjust to and

receive conditions prompting another ordinary in their nations. The education area is one that

has been generally affected by the pandemic, especially to the poor. Malaysia's schooling

area has decided on internet learning or e-learning with innovation and gadgets as a judge of

correspondence to supplant up close and personal education. Unfortunately, Malaysia faces

some e-learning approach constraints. It has not been fully legalized, as the connected

services did not pay attention to these issues, prompting a lack of common sense and
execution. These issues have set off another marvel called the "advanced gap" among nations

worldwide, as according to Sinar Harian (2020), innumerable students come from poor

metropolitan families without cell phones, laptops, or PCs at home that will make them

probably be given up more than their friends. As a result, most students living in neediness

regularly consider themselves casualties of a framework, without their independence or

capacity to settle on decisions that influence their life—also looking at the number of students

from many Klang Valley's helpless networks getting back to the school after MCO is

dropping at a dangerous rate as a result of the Covid-19 episode's interruption of school. The

expense was the most significant single factor adding to the disappointment, with a larger

part of families detailed troubles in gathering the expense related to school participation,

particularly among female-headed family units. Thus, how would they help their family exit

from poverty if they drop out of school?

Past pandemics have lopsidedly harmed the working poor, especially in terms of

occupation. The public authority has requested the people to remain at home and deterred

them from going out. Most organizations are currently receiving 'telecommute' arrangements

to decrease pointless voyaging, but this is not possible for a portion of the families in the

PPRs. Their work expects them to be genuinely present, for example, lorry drivers, café

labourers, and market representatives. The idea of these positions hopes them to associate

with others practically day by day, which expands their pace of getting the infection – and

therefore spreading it. An investigation by Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) assessed that

married couples with two children need around RM6,5002. Besides, Jabatan Perumahan

Negara (JPN) shows that 65.8% of the head of families in PPRs cross country procure

beneath RM2,000. As such, these families are most likely previously battling to make a

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decent living, and the repercussions from the flare-up will make a massive gouge in their

funds. The Malaysian Institute of Economic Research (MIER) likewise forewarned that the

latest decision to widen the MCO would bring unskilled labourers losing their positions.

Sadly, most of them would be from the PPRs.

The MCO implementation has carefully restricted informal business sectors, for

example, night markets. These business sectors are revenue and useful products for some

low-pay families to get modest food and merchandise, as many of the B40 cannot buy seven

days' food supply, either because they do not have the methods or need refrigeration that

makes them a beeline for the shops. However, the restriction had brought up the disruptions

to markets and supply chains that will push the price and availability of food up and affect the

poor. As the president of the Malaysian Chamber of Commerce and International Industry

(MICCI), Datuk Jalilah Baba also requested customers to be set up to confront rising costs

from products as expected during the pandemic. Some 1kg rice sack prices had risen to

RM48, which is before the pandemic we can get it for RM 18. This scenario had hardly

affected the poor, and they will become poorer. Moreover, roughly 20% of families in PPRs

are independently employed. Nonetheless, the flare-up has prompted these organizations to

have to one or the other scale back or close shop, cutting these family units off from one of

their essential resources.

In conclusion, Malaysia should find the best way to overcome this problem. On top of

every one of these difficulties, we should know that the poor guardians with youngsters

presently battle with adjusting obligations at work and home. From one viewpoint, they need

to procure pay. They need to give childcare as schools and kindergartens requested to close

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after the MCO, making their lives harder. Even Malaysia had many solutions during MCO

and CMCO such as Pelan Jana Semula Ekonomi Negara (PENJANA), it is only a short-term

solution to help the poor, in the future, they will again battling with the poverty and even

become worse than before. In the future, we will see even more family could not afford to

provide food for their children, more people losing their jobs, more people living in the tramp

and more children being drop out of the school as the connected service did not manage to

get the best solution to eliminate the poverty especially during the Covid-19 pandemic. If

these scenarios continuously happen, we are moving backwards on our mission to achieve the

17 SDG goals before 2030 and become one of the world's most developing countries.

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