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Communications Technology
(ICT) as a means of alleviating
poverty and enhancing health.
Foluso J Owotade.
Outline
• Definitions- What is ICT and Poverty.
• Scope of ICT
• Statistics of Poverty.
• The ICT and Poverty alleviation
connection- 1.Broad overview 2. specific
ICT applications 3.Specific strategies
• Limitation of ICT
• Case studies.
• Conclusion.
What is ICT?
• ICTs are usually understood to refer to
computers and the Internet, however
this view is limited,
• The more traditional and usually more
common technologies of radio, TV,
telephones, public address systems,
and even newspapers, also carry
information.
What is poverty?
• The figure of US$1 income per day is
widely accepted as a general indicator of
extreme poverty.
• There is no absolute cut-off and income is
only one indicator of the results of poverty,
among many others.
• According to the World Bank, poverty
includes powerlessness, voicelessness,
• vulnerability, and fear.
• Poverty also include the deprivation of
basic capabilities and lack of access to
education, health, natural resources,
employment, land and credit, political
participation, services, and infrastructure
(European Commission, 2001).
• An even broader definition of poverty
sees it as being deprived of the
information needed to participate in the
wider society, at the local, national or
global level (ZEF, 2002).
The scope of Poverty
• The World Bank reports that of the world’s six
billion people, 2.8 billion, almost half, live on less
than US$2 a day.
• 1.2 billion, a fifth, live on less than US$1 a day,
with 44 percent of them living in South Asia.
• Millennium Development Goals set for 2015 by
international development agencies include
reducing by half the proportion of people living in
extreme income poverty, or those living on less
than US$1 a day
Global distribution of poverty
The poverty-health connection
• No matter how health status and measures of SES are
combined, there is little doubt that poverty leads to ill
health.
• Although poor health can lead to reduced productivity
and poverty, more often the main direction of influence
is from poverty to poor(er) health.
• Long-duration poverty has larger (negative) health
consequences than occasional episodes of poverty.
• Both income level and income changes are significant
predictors of health status, but income level is the more
important of the two.
The ICT-Poverty connection
• a knowledge gap is an important
determinant of persistent poverty.
• developed countries already possess the
knowledge required to assure a universally
adequate standard of living.
• ICT can encourage greater interaction and
communication within and between
countries in order to reduce the “digital
divide”.
• Consider Kofi Anan’s quote on the digital
divide as an indicator of poverty.