The Internet could help reduce poverty<\/p>\n
Roger Harris, Development Consultant, Hong Kong<\/p>\n
Vulnerability to poverty now a fact of life more than half of
\nall 215 million Indonesians and more than half of all Indonesians
\nare likely to experience an episode of poverty every three years.<\/p>\n
These grim statistics seem to belie the fact that over the
\nlast three decades, the government of Indonesia has undertaken
\nmany initiatives to alleviate poverty through a variety of
\npolicies and programs. These have sought to provide basic needs
\nsuch as; food, education, health services, employment,
\nagricultural assistance, business credit for the poor and
\ninfrastructure assistance for urban slums.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, much of the benefits of these endeavors have
\nbeen reversed as a result of the economic crisis of 1997 along
\nwith the social turmoil and natural disasters in recent years. As
\na consequence, millions of people have fallen back below the
\npoverty threshold.<\/p>\n
Poverty alleviation efforts by the government have suffered
\nfrom limitations that have actually sidelined poor people, such
\nas; an emphasis on macroeconomic growth, overly centralized
\npolicies, charitable purposes as opposed to empowerment,
\nregarding people as objects rather than actors, perceiving
\npoverty only as an economic condition, and unduly generalized
\nassumptions and attempts to solve the problem.<\/p>\n
Accordingly, poverty levels in Indonesia have hardly improved
\nsince their pre-1997 levels.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, many developing country governments in Asia and all
\nthe major development agencies are actively pursuing policies and
\nstrategies for using Information and Communication Technologies
\n(ICTs) to reduce poverty. Mostly, this involves providing poor
\npeople with shared access to computers and the Internet, but it
\ncan also mean a more creative and pro-poor use of the more
\ntraditional technologies of TV and radio.<\/p>\n
The Indonesian government has not yet formulated a coherent
\nset of policies and strategies for using ICT for reducing the
\nurgent problem of poverty. It is burdened by a relatively poor
\nICT infrastructure, as the figures in the table show.<\/p>\n
IndonesiaMalaysiaThailandPhilippines
\nComputer Ownership Per 100 Inhabitants1.01 12.62.8 1.93
\nTelephone Lines Per 100 Inhabitants3.11 20.512.68.70
\nInternet Hosts Per 10,000 Inhabitants1.27 31.111.8 2.54
\nInternet Users Per 100 Inhabitants1.82 27.36.74.27
\nCell Phone Subscribers Per 100 Inhabitants1.73 32.8 12.3 15.9<\/p>\n
Many examples of how ICTs can reduce poverty can be observed
\nfrom neighboring countries. India, for example, the Asian country
\nwith the most poor people, is a hotbed of experimentation, with
\nseveral projects in hundreds of villages affecting tens of
\nthousands of poor people.<\/p>\n
In one project, the Karnataka State government in India has
\ncomputerized 20 million land ownership records belonging to 6.7
\nmillion farmers. Each record is available online from 177 public
\nkiosks at an equivalent cost of around Rp 1,700 per record. The
\nrecords provide valuable proof of land ownership, which farmers
\nneed in order to secure credit, and the system is so transparent
\nit has virtually eliminated the corruption of the traditional
\nvillage accountants.<\/p>\n
The E-Chaupal project in central India operates around 5,000
\npublic information kiosks and is a web-based initiative of the
\nITC corporation that serves Soya growers with information on
\nproducts and services required in Soya farming. The kiosks assist
\nin the supply of high quality farm inputs as well as the sale of
\nSoya products by the villagers. They also provide useful
\ninformation on commodity dealerships such as motorcycles and
\ntractors. The approach to dealing with farmers has revolutionized
\nagricultural commodity marketing in India through the use of ICT.<\/p>\n
In the East Malaysian state of Sarawak, on the island Borneo,
\nwithin walking distance of the Indonesian border, the ethnic
\nminority people of Bario do not yet have a road to the nearest
\ntown, and all travel is by air or foot. Yet they now have access
\nto the Internet via a public center with a satellite facility and
\nthe two schools in the village have computer laboratories, also
\nwith Internet access.<\/p>\n
As a piece of research, the project is demonstrating the high
\nvalue that isolated and remote communities place on improved
\ncommunications; probably the only means by which a unique culture
\nand lifestyle can hope to survive into the 21st century.<\/p>\n
The Philippine government is operating a pilot poverty
\nreduction project consisting of Multipurpose Community
\nTelecenters in rural villages on Mindanao. The project began in
\n1999, and is democratizing access to information for health,
\neducation, agriculture and rural enterprise development, through
\nthe shared use of ICT facilities.<\/p>\n
It has partnered with local non-governmental organizations
\n(NGO) who work closely with the communities to understand their
\ninformation requirements and to mobilize them towards local
\ndevelopment activities that are based on improved access to
\ninformation. The outcome is expected to lead to nationwide
\nimplementation involving potentially 44,000 villages.<\/p>\n
In northern Thailand, an NGO is operating several ICT
\nprojects, including a local TV station, to assist semi-nomadic,
\nnon-Thai speaking ethnic minorities living in remote villages who
\nhave become impoverished and disenfranchised. The programs use
\nICT for e-commerce and eco-tourism, a virtual hill tribe museum,
\na missing persons database and a Thai citizenship facility.<\/p>\n
Indonesia's use of computers and the Internet is very low
\ncompared to its neighbors. Also, 42 percent of the already low
\naccess to the Internet is from the 4,000 or so Warnet or public
\ninternet kiosks, most of which are profit-oriented and serve the
\nurban areas, however, most customers only log on to check email,
\nchat or play games.<\/p>\n
Rural access to the Internet, which is where the majority of
\npoor people live, is virtually non-existent, and many islands and
\nisolated districts are struggling to achieve even basic
\ntelephony. Despite the size of the country and its problems of
\npoverty, there are very few examples of the type described above
\nfor putting ICT to work for the tens of millions of poor people.
\nWhy is this?<\/p>\n
For its part, the government has yet to get its act together,
\nboth in dealing with the poverty issue and with a national
\nresponse to ICTs for poverty reduction. Although in the later
\nstages of preparation, the national poverty reduction strategy
\nhas yet to place a priority on the use of ICTs. This is a pity,
\nbecause at the present rate of improvement there is little hope
\nof achieving the levels of poverty reduction targeted under the
\ninternationally adopted Millennium Development Goals, which
\ninclude halving the incidence of poverty by 2015. We have seen
\nthat while macroeconomic growth is important, it is not the same
\nthing as poverty reduction. The only hope of accelerating the
\npace of poverty reduction is to adopt creative measures and
\nmodern technology, which means learning from international
\nexperience and using ICT.<\/p>",
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