ICT knowledge should be targeted to the poor

THE life of the people in rural communities in Africa, south of Sahara desert continues to deteriorates as most African governments in these regions do not adopt serious means by which they could bridge the digital divide and allows ICT tools to twist the modern technology transfer in the workings. Despite ICTs’ powerfulness that can play a pivotal role in reducing abject poverty among the marginalized groups of the people in rural communities within the region, sheer laxity on their use is determined to be a great cause for their failure to avert poverty. Most economies in rural areas depend on road infrastructure and other forms of cheap transport, but going beyond this trend, communication link is of vital importance to ensure time delivery of services. Internet, being the fastest communication tool, has less accessibility in rural communities because of the high cost of its accessibility. Even if the service cost is made available, they are virtually unaffordable to the ordinary people in most of these regions. Since mid of the 1990s years of economic liberalization in Tanzania, there has been a large wave of investments in ICTs for development and the most significant of this is the mushrooming of the telecommunication sector. Such interments have been aimed at poor people both in terms of bridging ICT access and using it in many other ways which it could support poverty reduction strategies. For the last five years, a number of measures have been taken by the government to locate a conducive environment for ICT investment in IT sector in the country as addressed in the National ICT policy that among the key areas that need attention in order to realize the benefits of ICT application for all is in rural community.

Empowering the locals at Lunga Lugoba community based Tele-Centre in Cost Region.

The policy highlights 10 focused areas which includes strategic ICT leadership and infrastructure for reliable and efficient access to information for the people to be involved in rural business activities. Since then, Tanzania has made major strides to ensure that most villages in the country get internet access and at the most affordable price. The strategy has been focused on the construction of community technology centers popularly known as the Tele-Centres. A number of Tele-centres have been constructed in various districts in recent years in a bid to ensure the digital empowerment among users in rural communities. Thus, this is one way on how to curb with the digital divide which still exists among the poor people in rural communities in the country. But it’s unfortunate to say that, while information technology is growing rapidly, some segments of communities remain largely disconnected and or stay away from this trend for some better reasons in mind. From the African continent point of view, statistics shows that internet access and computer ownership plus the use of mobile phones in most African rural communities are lower among other groups of the population primarily due to poverty. A continued poverty stricken situation in the continent is one such aspect which has put many African communities to lag behind the western nations in terms of development. Other attributing factors is accounted for lack of knowledge and possession of poor skills in information technology. Lack of reliable electricity supplies that still prevails in most African regions is yet another big problem which contributes to a larger extent the growth of the communication sector in general an aspect that leads to the expensiveness in use of the information tools such as internet access. Many researchers in Africa have restricted to the problem of access to technology, but having access to the computers the major component used to drive the information technology in the world, the individual lack of skills is attributed to poor knowledge and lack of sufficient training. The study carried out in Tanzanian rural villages five years ago on the impact of ICTs on rural livelihood and poverty reduction, meant to see to what extent the ICTs had in fact speeded to the rural areas and to what extent they contributed to socio-economic development of the rural people.

A training session for empowerment on ICT use for the local people in rural areas is a one step development initiative on ICT awareness

Reports on these research findings reveals that better understanding of the use of ICTs is an important part of the national strategy for growth and reduction of poverty. But this has remained rather compelling. Indicators such as infant and maternal mortality rates access and school performances are worse off in most rural areas in the country according to the reports. For the last twelve years of economic liberalization, Tanzania has shown a tremendous increase of the use of the internet in urban areas since the country was fully connected into the internet in 1996. More development of the internet use is envisaged in urban areas than in rural areas. There is therefore a need to reduce barriers in deploying ICT and in developing the required human capital for sustainable participation of Tanzanian society in the ICT industry.