IDEAS Annual Report 2010 Medium Resolution

8/3/2019 IDEAS Annual Report 2010 Medium Resolution

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ANNUALREPORT2010


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IDEAS ANNUAL REPORT 2010 2

IDEAS HAS BEEN RANKED ASTHE 18TH BEST NEW THINK

TANK GLOBALLY IN 2010by University of Pennsylvania's Think Tanks andCivil Society's Programme

THE STUDY BY THE INSTITUTE FORDEMOCRACY AND ECONOMICAFFAIRS (IDEAS) INTO WAYS OFIMPROVING THE LIVELIHOODS OFMALAYSIAN FARMERS THROUGHMODERN TECHNOLOGY INAGRICULTURE IS VITAL ANDLAUDABLETun Abdullah Badawi, Former Prime Minister of Malaysia,

Commenting on one of IDEAS research projects

THE IDEAS PROJECT LOOKS BACK...

NOT JUST TO AN INDIVIDUAL BUT TO

AN ERA IN MALAYSIAS BRIEF

HISTORY. [IDEAS] WILL PROMOTE THE

VALUES AND PRINCIPLES ON WHICH

WE WERE FORMEDTengku Razaleigh Hamzah in his speech to launch IDEAS

on 8 February 2010

A MEMBER OF THE ARISTOCRACY, A PAS

TURNED TORY AND A DIE-HARD MEMBER

OF UMNO. BI-PARTISANSHIP, MIND YOU, IS

INGRAINED IN IDEAS ... MALAYSIA NEEDS

YOUNG MEN (AND WOMEN) LIKE THE

THREE FELLOWS AT IDEAS... ONE CAN

ONLY WISH THE FOUNDERS OF IDEAS ALL

THE BEST. I AM CONFIDENT THAT THEIR

INSTITUTE WILL SHAKE UP OUR

POLITICAL AND INTELLECTUAL

LANDSCAPE FOR THE BETTER

Karim Raslan writing in The Star, 10 February 2010


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IDEASIDEAS is inspired by the vision of Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra al-Haj,

the first Prime Minister of Malaysia, and we share his vision as stated

in the 1957 Proclamation of Independence that this nation should:

be for ever a sovereign democratic and

independent State founded upon the principles of

liberty and justice and ever seeking the welfare

and happiness of its people and the maintenance

of a just peace among all nations

IDEAS is Malaysias first think-tank

dedicated to promoting market-based

solutions to public policy challenges. We

are an independent not-for-profit

organisation. As a cross-partisan think tank,

we work across the political spectrum. Our

purpose is to advance market-based

principles, and we are not bound by party

politics, race or religion.

Our mission is to improve the level of

understanding and acceptance of public

policies based on the principles of rule of

law, limited government, free markets and

free individuals.


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WAU BEBAS LOGO

IDEAS logo is the wau bulan that flies freely in the sky hence its name

Wau Bebas or the Kite of Freedom.

IDEASInstitute for Democracy and Economic Aairs

The traditional Wau Bebas motif symbolises

IDEAS belief that the principles of Rule of Law

(Kedaulatan Undang-Undang), Limited

Government (Kerajaan Terhad), Free Markets

(Pasaran Bebas), and Free Individuals (Individu

Merdeka), are deeply rooted in our nations

tradition and heritage. A wau is only complete

and functional when it is rooted to the ground

via a string, depicting our call for abidance to

the rule of law within a small, limited state.

Our task is to rediscover these truly Malaysian

values and to re-present them to contemporary

Malaysian society so that our history and

heritage will help us prosper in a globalised

world.


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Advisory Board

YBhg Emeritus Professor Tan Sri Dato Dr Khoo

Kay Kim

YBhg Datuk Seri Azman UjangYBhg Dato Dr Michael Yeoh

Mr Edmond Yeo JP

Cross-Party Advisory Group

YB Dato Nur Jazlan Mohamed MP (UMNO)

Wong Nai Chee (MCA)

Khaw Veon Szu (Gerakan)

YB Yusmadi Yusoff MP (PKR)

YBM Senator Tunku Aziz Ibrahim (DAP)

YB Dato Kamarudin Jaffar MP (PAS)

International Advisors

YBhg Dato Anthony Cooper FCA FRSA

Greville Trust and Yayasan Tinggi

Professor Julian Morris

Executive Director, International Policy Network, London

Dr Tom G Palmer

Vice President, Atlas Economic Research Foundation & General

Director, Atlas Global Initiative For Free Trade,

Peace and Prosperity

Dr Mark PenningtonFellow, Institute of Economic Affairs, London

Linda Whetstone

Chairman, International Policy Network and Board Member, Mont

Pelerin Society

Board Of Directors

YAM Tunku Zain Al-Abidin Tuanku Muhriz

Founding President

Wan Mohd Firdaus Wan Mohd FuaadFounding Director

Wan Saiful Wan Jan

Founding Chief Executive

Staff

Wan Saiful Wan Jan

Founding Chief Executive

YAM Tunku Zain Al-Abidin Tuanku Muhriz

Director of Research

Afif Abdullah

Project Manager

Munirah Hayati Muhtar

Programme Officer

Mohamad Naim Ahmad

Executive Officer

Senior Fellows, Fellows and Associates

Professor Abdul Aziz Bari Senior Fellow

Professor James Chin Senior Fellow

Barun Mitra Senior Fellow

Dr Helmy Haja Mydin Fellow

Hafiz Noor Shams Fellow

Wan Hamidi Hamid Fellow

Keith Leong Fellow

Kwek Kon Yao Fellow

Noor Amin Ahmad Fellow

Jeevan Rasanayagam Associate

Wan Fadzrul Wan Bahrum Associate

Our Interns this year

Cilia Chong

Catherine SeeLenard Lim Yangli

Aizuddin Anuar

THE TEAM


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IDEAS IN 2010

HIGHLIGHTS


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OFFICIAL LAUNCH CEREMONY

IDEAS was launched on 8 February 2010, in conjunctionwith the birthday of Almarhum Tunku Abdul RahmanPutra, Malaysias first Prime Minister.

The event, which received wide coverage in the media,was attended by three generations of Tunkus family andmore than 150 civil society leaders, captains of

industries, politicians, senior government officials,representatives from the media and members of the

public.

Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, former Minister of Finance,delivered the speech to officiate the launch.

PROMOTING FEDERALISM

Many organisations have been working with politicalparties at the national level. But Malaysia is afederation of thirteen states, with each state having itsown political battlefield. IDEAS believe it is important

to engage with political stakeholders in the states, inaddition to those at the federal level.

In 2010, we organised six workshops for statepolitical leaders and activists in:

Sungai Petani, Kedah

Sandakan, Sabah Kuching, Sarawak Sibu, Sarawak Georgetown, Penang

Kota Bharu, Kelantan

With help from constitutional experts and lawyers,

IDEAS developed a special module on federalism,decentralisation and devolution of power for theseworkshops.


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SPECIAL HIGHLIGHT

MALAYSIA DAY CELEBRATION

To celebrate the 47th anniversary of the formation of the

Federation of Malaysia, IDEAS organised a fundraisingdinner and hosted the descendants of Malaysiasfounding fathers, including the children, grandchildren

and great-grandchildren of Tunku Abdul Rahman, TunFuad Stephens, Tun Temenggong Jugah, Tun TanCheng Lock, Tun Sambanthan and Tun Dr Ismail. This

was the first time since Malaysia Day in 1963 that somany members of these families were reunited underone roof.

PUBLIC OUTREACHIn 2010, IDEAS organised 15 seminars and discussions.Our team also spoke or participated in 8 other events topromote market-based ideas.

We also feel that it is very important to engage with thepublic so that our proposals are rooted in reality. IDEASteam visited rural areas across the country to speak

directly to villagers and townsfolk in:

Muadzam Shah, Pahang Jitra, Kedah

Batu Sapi, Sabah Sekinchan, Selangor

Sibujaya, Sarawak Kangar, Perlis

Gua Musang, Kelantan

PUBLIC OUTREACHIn 2010, IDEAS organised 15 seminars and discussions.Our team also spoke or participated in 8 other events topromote market-based ideas.

We also feel that it is very important to engage with thepublic so that our proposals are rooted in reality. IDEASteam visited rural areas across the country to speak

directly to villagers and townsfolk in:

Muadzam Shah, Pahang Jitra, Kedah

Batu Sapi, Sabah Sekinchan, Selangor

Sibujaya, Sarawak Kangar, Perlis

Gua Musang, Kelantan


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ENGAGING THE MEDIAFor an organisation that is only in its first year, IDEAShas been very active in the print and broadcast media.Our opinions were sought by journalists from both thenational and international press. We have been quoted

by news agencies including Bernama, Reuters, AFP, thelocal press as well as international publications such asThe Economist.

Our achievements:

regular columns in 6 national press outlets: Utusan

Malaysia, Harakah, The Star, The Edge, The Sunand The Malaysian Insider

17 TV and radio interviews on channels Astro Awani,

Bernama TV, ntv7, TV3, RTM1 and on BusinessFM 121 newspaper articles 55 mentions in printed news reports 520 minutes on TV and radio, mostly live

3 hour live TV debate on channel ntv7 when thePrime Minister tabled the 10th Malaysia Plan

IDEAS was also featured in national newspapers andmagazines, including The Star, The Edge, New StraitsTimes, Kosmo!, Time Out, and KLue.

We made it to the cover page of the specialIndependence Day Edition of Malaysia Tatler (August2010), which ran a 15-page feature on the founding

fathers, with us discussing Tunku Abdul Rahman.


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LOBBYING FOR FREEDOMIDEAS initiated and participated in various meetings tobring free market ideas into our policy debates,including:

National Economic Advisory Council (NEAC)working group on affirmative action for the NewEconomic Model

National Key Economic Area (NKEA) Lab onEducation organised by PEMANDU

Discussion with Ministry of Finance on Goods andServices Tax (GST)

We held meetings with:

Datuk Seri Peter Chin, Minister for Energy, Green

Technology and Water Dato Saifuddin Abdullah, Deputy Minister for Higher

Education

Dato Latt Shariman Abdullah, Special FunctionsOfficer to the Minister of Finance

Tengku Tan Sri Razaleigh Hamzah, Former Ministerof Finance

REFORMING EDUCATION

IDEAS is committed to identifying ways to introduce

more choice and competition in our educationsystem. With funding from CfBT Education Trust,England, we embarked on a six months research

into this topic. The report will be published in April /May 2011. We also assembled a new educationadvisory panel which we convened twice.

IDEAS hosted a dinner for Teach for Malaysia (TFM)and their stakeholders on 25 October 2010. TFM isan exciting new programme incubated by Khazanah

Nasional Berhad aiming to create a cadre of futureleaders in education.

IDEAS is also partnering with Yayasan Chow Kit to

set up Wau Bebas Kindergarten for stateless andrefugee children, as part of our effort to prove thatprivate providers can cater for all sections of society.Renovation of the kindergarten site started in

November 2010, and it will be opened in the first halfof 2011.


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RESEARCH AND PUBLICATIONS

Perspektif Perlembagaan

by Professor Abdul Aziz Bari, Senior Fellow, IDEASa collection of essays reviewing constitutional issues after the March2008 general elections

What is the Role of Government?by Kwek Kon Yao, Fellow, IDEAS

a small booklet discussing the topic using Ayn Rands

Objectivist framework

Abiding Timesby Tunku Abidin Muhriz,Founder President, IDEAS

a collection of articles by the author, mainly from hiscolumn in The Sun newspaperpublished by Marshall Cavendish

Adakah Gaji Minima Cara Terbaik untuk

Membantu Golongan Miskin? (Is MinimumWage the Best Way to Help the Poor?)by Afif Abdullah, Fellow, IDEASa literature review on the topic

Liberalising Malaysian Economy?A response to the proposed New Economic Model

by Kwek Kon Yao, Afif Abdullah, and Wan Saiful Wan JanIDEAS response to Part 1 of NEM proposal

Water Provision in Malaysia: privatise or nationalise?by David Bonnadeaux, Maria Rodriguez, Alex Nash, and

Wan Saiful Wan Jan

The Fall of the Liberal Party of Australia:lessons for Malaysian liberalsby Keith Leong, Fellow, IDEAS


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REGIONAL OUTREACHIn partnership with Atlas Global Initiative for Free Trade,

Peace and Prosperity (www.atlasnetwork.org), IDEAS

manages www.AkademiMerdeka.org, a platform to promoteclassical liberal ideas to Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore

and Brunei. Through this partnership, we organised three

Akademi Merdeka our residential course - in Indonesia(Sukabumi, Bogor and Jakarta) and one in Bangi, Selangor.

IDEAS is also one of only two organisations from Malaysia

that is a member of the Economic Freedom Network(www.efnasia.org), a regional network of research institutes,

practitioners, influential think-tanks and individuals working

together to promote the benefits of civil society, market

economy and free individuals.

SPECIAL HIGHLIGHT

WAU BEBAS KINDERGARTEN

Since 2008, IDEAS has been working with YayasanChow Kit and other corporate partners to establish

Tadika Wau Bebas, a social enterprise kindergartenaiming to provide quality preschool education tourban poor children who are at risk and who have

no access to any form of education.

Tadika Wau Bebas will be launched in the first halfof 2011.


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INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION

2010 saw IDEAS actively widening our

international network.

IDEAS also took part or delivered presentations invarious international meetings and conferences

including:

International Democrats Union (IDU)

Executive Meeting, Taipei. February 2010

International Academy for Leadership,

Germany. March 2010 Heritage Resource Bank, Miami. April 2010

Pacific Rim Policy Exchange, Sydney.September 2010

With Mr Ma Ying-jieu, President of Taiwan

With John Howard, former

Prime Minister of Australia


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FINANCE


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INSTITUTE FOR DEMOCRACY AND ECONOMIC AFFAIRSINCOME AND EXPENDITURE STATEMENTfrom 1 January 2010 to 31 December 2010

RM

INCOME

Restricted grants

AkademiMerdeka.org Atlas Economic Research Foundation (USA) 288,282.81Friedrich Naumann Foundation (Germany) 101,998.65

Greville Trust (UK) 80,647.00International Policy Network (UK) 58,399.85

CfBT Education Trust (UK) 35,284.08International Property Rights Index (USA) 4,119.98

Subtotal restricted grants 568,732.37

Unrestricted fund

Local donations 20,575.00Other Income (Book sales, events fees, bank interest, etc) 11,338.41

Subtotal unrestricted grants 31,913.41

TOTAL INCOME 600,645.78

EXPENDITURE

Funded Activities (direct costs, excluding salaries)(see note 1)

Student engagement activities 110,370.01Publications 77,046.17Federalism workshops 57,179.70Public Outreach 34,656.11

School Reform Research (see note 2) 3,948.75Subtotal funded activities 283,200.74

Unfunded Activities(see note 3) Subtotal unfunded activities 36347.78

OperationsSalaries / Honoraria / Allowances 183,844.70

Utilities, telephone, internet 10,472.30Office rental, equipments, supplies 46,544.89Administration 4,703.09Media monitoring 1,380.00Other Expenditure 15,591.17

Subtotal operations 262,536.15

TOTAL EXPENDITURE 582,084.67

Surplus brought forward to 2011 18,561.11

Note 1: Funding for our Parliamentary Reform Research Project from Greville Trust is used to pay only for salaries / honoraria of

researchers, and is therefore not listed under this categoryNote 2: The bulk of the funding from CfBT Education Trust was to pay for researchers' time, which explains why this figure is low.

Note 3: Unfunded activities included research on minimum wage, New Economic Model, Economic Transformation Programme,participation in meetings / labs organised by PEMANDU, National Economic Advisory Council, and other policy meetings


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KEY CHALLENGES

& OUTLOOK


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KEY CHALLENGES 2010Restricted funding prevents us from responding toarising issues. Most funders do not fund core

operational costs, preferring instead to focus onspecific projects. This severely restricted our ability toquickly respond to emerging issues as they arise or totake part in activities for which there is no funding. For

example, we could have played a more active role inthe shaping of key policy documents such as the NEMand ETP if we had the resources to pay for staff time to

participate in the various meetings we were invited to.

Our staff team is too small, thus forcing us to stretch ourresources very thinly. We have been very lucky to be

able to find the committed and talented team that wehave now. But growing the team proved to bechallenging because not many job-seekers fullyappreciate the meaning and importance of the classical

liberal values we are promoting. And we were alsounable to create specialised teams within IDEAS toaddress specific issues in more details.

OUTLOOK FOR 2011

While we have been successful in 2010, we must dobetter in 2011. This is a crunch year for IDEAS - our

achievements in 2011 will impact IDEAS trajectory inthe future.

Our aims for 2011 are to:

conduct more activities to revive the thoughts andideas of Almarhum Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra

make our activities more focused on specific areas increase the proportion of funding we receive from

domestic sources


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DONATION FORM

I support IDEAS cause and I want my donation to be used to fund IDEAS activities.

( ) I enclose a cheque made payable to IDEAS Management

( ) I have transferred my donation to IDEAS (CIMB account no: 1456 000 147 0059)

Amount

( ) RM250

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( ) RM10,000

( ) other amount: RM

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( ) Please tick here if you agree to being listed as a donor on our website and literature.

Please send this form to:

Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs (IDEAS)D6 Taman Tunku, Bukit Tunku50480 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Help us to make Tunku Abdul Rahmans vision fora Malaysia based on liberty and justice a reality

IDEAS is funded through the generosity of donors - foundations, individuals and corporations. Our

policy in receiving donations is very simple yet strict: while we are indebted to all donors, we will never

compromise our commitment to our mission, which is to improve the level of understanding and

acceptance of public policies based on the principles of rule of law, limited government, free markets

and free individuals. We therefore do not accept funding from political parties or sources that threaten

our independence and cross-partisanship.

We invite you to renew or to become a supporter for the first time.

We cannot survive without your help.


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Institute for Democracy and

Economic Affairs (IDEAS)

D6 Taman Tunku, Bukit Tunku

50480 Kuala LumpurMalaysia

Tel: +60 3 6201 8896 / 8897

Fax: +60 3 6211 0222

email: [email protected]

www.ideas.org.my

IDEAS Annual Report 2010 Medium Resolution

Documents