No doubt, ICTs have fulfilled Marshall Macluhan's prophesy about three decades ago, that the world would become a global village where the gap created by distance would be greatly bridged.
Today, through the internet, someone in a remote Nigerian village could send an e-mail to another in South East Asia and receive a reply within few minutes.
Through the traditional electronic media (radio and television), what is happening in far remote places is relayed life to people. Telephone has reduced distance, too, as people in different continents can communicate as if they were in the same compound.
And through a convergence of these technologies,the global village is further being reduced into a global family. The technology convergence, too, offers wealth creation opportunities, thus helping in alleviating poverty.
Indeed, ICTs can be and have been used to alleviate poverty. People who were in the lower rung of society's income ladder, have risen to the top through making effective use of the bouquet of opportunities offered by ICTs.
While briefing ICT journalists, on the programme of the Nigerian Internet Group (NIG) the newly elected president, Mr. Lanre Ajayi said that after focusing attention for 10 years, on internet awareness, the group would now focus on content; building local content with a view to creating tremendous job opportunities for Nigerian.
"The new vision of NIG is to promote building local content for the internet and using it as a tool for job creation. To achieve this, we are planning a programme tagged Internet for Job Creation (I4JC)," he informed.
The programme's objective,he said, would be to showcase internet as a veritable tool for job and wealth creation and to empower Nigerians to take full advantage of the opportunities offered by the amazing technology of internet.
He added that by hosting a website, and filling it with some local materials, for instance forklores, those who are interested in Nigerian forklores would constantly visit the website which in turn would attract premium or advetisements.
"There are many ways of making money through the internet. Take for instance, hosting a website and filling it with local content, say forklores, those interested in Nigerian forklores may pay to visit the site. Even if it is free, because many people visit the site, it could attract advertisements and the owner of the site would make money."
"Do you know how much West African Examination Council (WAEC) makes with their online registration? I mean somebody came up with that idea and sold it to them. That is local content, and it is what we are talking about," he explained.
ICTs could be of great use in education, healthcare, agriculture, among other areas. It can go a long way, too, in helping government in serving the people better. A robust and agile ICT sector, according Greenberg A., an ICT and poverty alleviation expert, is an enabler, allowing the selected use of ICTs in poverty alleviation. Moreover, he adds, the ICT sector is that enabler which allows a country to participate in the global ICT-based economy.
Education:
Education begets knowledge. And a knowledgeable person has the world at his feet. ICTs have become the bedrock of modern education. The internet has become an invaluable tool for researchers. A lot of time and money is saved by researchers as a result of availability of the internet.
Information contained in books or journals that could have cost a researcher a lots of money to buy could be downloaded from the internet via a system in his bedroom or in the cybercafe. A researcher can also access libraries in research institutions in towns and countries far removed from him rather than spending time and money to visit such places.
Through email and phone call, a researcher could, right in his bedroom, get an explanation, from his supervisor or mentor, on how to go about a certain subject or chapter in his thesis.
Today e-learning is becoming popular. A person can stay in his bedroom and receive lectures from professors in universities in other countries. There are a given number of on-line courses offered by universities. One does not need to be in a classroom and receive lectures for such courses. The course materials are posted on-line, the lectures are taken on-line and the student submits his assignments online, too. No doubt, findings from such researches could benefit the rural poor as it could help in enlightening them in better and cheaper ways of earning a living.
However, there are two prime keys to success in using ICTs to improve education. The first, according to Greenberg, is to ensure that pre-requisite resources are deployed - installing computers in schools makes no sense without teachers who know how to teach with them and without technical support to keep them working. The second is to deploy them widely enough to substantially benefit the country. This is however, an expensive and long term commitment.
Agriculture:
ICTs have been shown to be effective at both enhancing traditional methods of agriculture and at allowing creation of new ones.
Simple examples of enhancements include radio programmes on agriculture which have been used to teach farmers modern methods of farming and crop information such as advantages of improved seedlings that have been or would be introduced to the market.
ICTs have also helped in providing farmers with weather forecasts, and this arms them with information on when to plant and when not to plant; when to expect good harvest and when not to expect good harvest.
Livelihood:
As in agriculture, ICTs have been shown to be effective at both enhancing traditional livelihoods and at allowing creation of new ones. Through the internet, artisans can get information on new methods of doing their jobs and adopt innovations that have worked elsewhere.
In Nigeria, the Global System for Mobile (GSM) communication revolution introduced new business. People now earn their living through repairing faulty handsets, selling airtime recharge cards and operating call centres. This is apart from those directly employed by GSM operators.
There are also a lot of people involved in computer repairs and those employed to manage cybercafes.
Healthcare:
Health is wealth: Only a healthy person can talk of improving his social status. There has been significant focus on using ICTs to deliver healthcare via telemedicine and as a way of educating people on healthcare. Telemedicine is the use of ICTs for medical diagnosis and patient care when the provider and his client are separated by distance. It offers the potential to alleviate severe shortage of medical specialists in resource-poor areas such as rural areas in Nigeria.
Telemedicine will also make it possible for local professional to benefit from experience of health professionals in developed world without extra burden of travel cost. It can improve healthcare services by addressing off-site databases, linking clinics or physicians' offices to central hospitals, or transmitting x-rays or other diagnosis images for examinations at another site.
In other words, ICTs are helping in collection, processing storing and retrieval of healthcare data and information.
Government:
eGovernment is the umbrella name for computerisation of government operations and processes to improve the lives of the citizenry. It includes all efforts of government to take its services closer to the people through ICTs and it also aims at making government operations more transparent and open.
Government can use ICTs to collect, process and retrieve demographic data along with other related information such as on water, roads, electricity, telephone coverage, among others.
Once data is available, Geographic Information System (GIS) can be used to manipulate and graphically display the data. Data collection and display systems,however,could allow governments to understand poverty issues and ultimately address them.
Autor: Nnaemeka Meribe
Quelle: AllAfrica, 09.03.2006
