Dara Aisyah et al./ Elixir Social Studies 74 (2014) 27065-27071 27065 Introduction Eradicating poverty is an important basis of Malaysia's development agenda as the aim of the New Economic Policy (NEP), from 1971 to 1990, is to reduce poverty rates from 49.3 percent in 1970 to 16.7 percent in 1990. Next, under the National Development Policy (DPN), 1991-2000, the goal was to reduce poverty rate to 7.2 percent and the rate of extreme poverty to 0.5 percent in 2000. Under the National Vision Policy (DWN), 2001-2010, poverty rate would be reduced to 0.5 percent by 2005. Malaysia has been able to achieve the goal of reducing poverty from 52.4 percent in 1970 to 3.8 percent in 2009. In 10 th Malaysia Plan (2010-2015) Malaysia has targeted to increase the average income for 40 percent of the households from RM 1440 in 2009 to RM 2300, and the poverty rate would be reduced to 2.0 percent in 2015. Although poverty has been reduced, the agriculture and fisheries sectors still has a high incidence of poverty. As for today, the problem of poverty is still considered as a formidable social disease. Variety of ways have been implemented to eliminate poverty such as providing programs that can increase revenue, providing training programs to enhance skills, morale and productivity, land clearance programs, education programs, agricultural subsidies and provision of micro-credit system. In addition, poverty mapping is made available in urban and rural areas as one of the ways to show government's serious effort to reduce poverty and eradicate hardcore poverty in the country, as well as to improve the quality of life of the poor in rural areas in accordance to the government policies, which related to poverty alleviation and rural development. The fisheries sector is important in the development of agriculture in this country which contributes 1.47 percent of Gross Domestic Product (KDNK). Although the percentage was small compared to other sectors fisheries still remains the main manufacturers’ source of protein for people's diet for this country and provide employment opportunities to 82,200 fishermen (Report of the Social, Economic Fishermen 1998). In an effort to increase the income of poor households in the agricultural sector, the Skim Pembangunan Kesejahteraan Rakyat (SPKR) and specific programs with the objective to diversify the sources of income of farmers, breeders and fishermen has been widened to provide the benefit to a greater number of households (Rancangan Malaysia ke-9, 2006). Although the fisheries sector has undergone major changes in terms of technology and the number of landings, the economic status of fishing communities in the country is still relatively low (Salim Amin, 2012). Malaysia is one of the countries identified by the World Bank as having a successful economic community. However, there are still farmers, breeders and fishermen who have yet to enjoy the outgrowth of development as if they remained on the sidelines development process (Muhyiddin, 2004). Malaysia focuses on human capital development, especially among the Social welfare development program among coastal community (SPKMP) in kuala Terengganu: a preliminary assessment on the performance of the program Dara Aisyah 1,* , Khatijah Omar 2 and Noor Fadhiha Mokhtar 2 1 Center of Society Development (CSD), Universiti Malaysia Terengganu. 2 School of Maritime Business and Management), Universiti Malaysia Terengganu. ABSTRACT SPKMP is a public programme with the objective of uplifting the level of wellness among coastal community particularly the poor households. Since its inception in 2001, the programme has undergone several phases of improvement. However, until now living conditions of the coastal poor households remain unchanged. The present study aimed at assessing performance of SPKMP in terms of implementation of the program as well as the performance of the organizations that involved in the program, particularly looking into the mechanism used in managing the program with special reference to district of Kuala Terengganu. By using official records and reports from various agencies at the central level and district offices besides observation and in-depth interviews with households and officials at the agencies involved, the study discovered some interesting findings. Firstly, the principles serve as a guideline for the implementation of the program were not followed by the implementing agencies at the district level. Various malpractices were also detected. Secondly, the evaluation showed that most of the program outputs cannot help the fishermen to increase their household income and savings. Thirdly, the marine resources are depleting, therefore the fishermen are not able to increase their catch. Furthermore, coastal communities have not received sufficient assistance in the program so they do not get the necessary moral support. This study shows that the development agencies have not been able to implement the program properly because of weak and inefficient management. Policies, strategies and activities that are more suitable are needed to improve the program. © 2014 Elixir All rights reserved. ARTICLE INFO Article history: Received: 13 July 2014; Received in revised form: 21 August 2014; Accepted: 12 September 2014; Keywords SPKMP, Performance, Output evaluation, Management, Malpractices and Inefficiency. Elixir Social Studies 74 (2014) 27065-27071 Social Studies Available online at www.elixirpublishers.com (Elixir International Journal) Tele: E-mail addresses: d.aisyah@umt.edu.my © 2014 Elixir All rights reserved