An Appraisal of Information and Communication Technology (Ict) Resources for Sustainable Poverty Eradication and Development in Nigeria

One of the biggest problem in today’s world is the struggle of African Countries and others. Seventy-five percent of the world’s poorest countries are located in Africa. Approximately one in three people living in Africa are undernourished and millions even lack the opportunity to have clean water. Only around twenty percent of women in Africa have access to education. This data proves that modern world

There are some countries in this world with a GDP less than $750, with populations earning less than $1 a day, life expectancies barely reaching past 40 years old and devastatingly poor levels of health care, school enrolment and adult literacy rates. These are the defining indicators of people living in low developing countries (LDC’s). Populations living in poverty and the majority with an income too small to accommodate their basic needs and the resources in the national economy, even when equally distributed are not enough to provide a sustainable living for the population. Of the 50 countries recognised as LDC’s, 33 are found in Africa, south of the Sahara with 374 million living on an income of less than $2 a day. It seems that

Despite what some scholars may argue, I believe that Africa already possesses the know-how it needs to advance and ICTs, while useful is many ways, do not bring about meaningful economic improvements in the lives of the

Poverty was originally inevitable as a result of world affairs, such as slavery, wars and battles for independence. After world affairs has settled, majority of countries recovered from their despair and hardship. Today, the worldwide rate of poverty has dropped dramatically except in sub-Saharan Africa. Jeffery D. Sachs has spent 25 years working in indigent countries of Africa in effort to understand the cause of their endeavors with extreme poverty. Sachs, then, provided an analysis of why extreme poverty exists in Africa and how well developed countries can contribute toward eradicating the complication.

The "Giant of Africa", Nigeria is a country found in Africa that has many natural resources but still has a very high poverty rate. We will examine the case of Nigeria, former colony of Britain. Though blessed with abundant natural resources, most people remain poor. Firstly, we will examine what is happening in Nigeria that explains how Nigerian citizens aren’t able to provide for themselves. Secondly, we will examine the causes which is why they cannot afford to live a healthy and safe life for reasons such as lack of education. Finally, we will examine the solutions to these problems such as social movements in Canada as well as Nigeria that are helping to change this. These social movements contain celebrities that advertise their charity. They raise awareness so that people that don’t really pay attention can open their eyes and be apart of the

Unlike developed countries, countries that are undeveloped have a huge digital divide. Globally, the digital divide is increasing because many citizens living on undeveloped countries has less than 1 percent of computer and internet access. In Africa, less than ten percent of the population have used a computer. Majority of nations in Africa’s yearly internet access cost more than the yearly income (“Digital Divide” 1-2).

When poverty is pervasive in an area, it affects everyone in that area. Poverty-stricken people often feel hopeless and believe that their situations will never improve. It is our duty to ensure that changes do take place for these individuals. The condition of poverty does not have to be a permanent one. No one should have to go to bed hungry because of poverty. No one should be denied adequate medical care because of poverty. No one should have to be homeless or live in poor conditions because of poverty. Poverty affects every society in which it exists. Because of this reality, it is vital to explore the solutions that will led to the end of poverty. It is then vital to put those solutions into action so that this horrible condition can be ended as soon as possible. This resolution will only lead to positive results for our entire world’s

INTRODUCTIONBackground Sub-Saharan Africa continues to present the world with its most formidable developmentchallenge. During the last two decades the number of the poor in Africa has doubled from150 million to 300 million, more than 40 percent of the region’s population. About one thirdof the region’s population lives in countries affected by or emerging from conflict. Moreover,HIV/AIDS continues to threaten African lives and livelihoods. Africa is the only region thatremains behind on most of the MDGs. On current trends it will fall far short of meeting the2015 targets, (The World Bank, 2005).Africa has come a long way in its efforts to achieve sustainable development. Lessons of thecontinent’s development over the last two decades consistently highlighted the need for moreintensive efforts to effectively address some of its major development constraints. Acombination of ineffective policies, outright mismanagement (in some countries), heavyexternal debt burden, poor governance, and conflicts precipitated the massive economicdecline in the early 1980s. The recovery in the latter half of the decade was partly due tomajor economic policy reforms as well as growing socio-political pluralism and economicstability, which were consolidated in the decade of the 1990s. Yet, much still remains to bedone, as the African continent entered the 21st century faced with numerous developmentchallenges. Some of these challenges

Before I started my work on this topic, I was already aware that poverty is a tremendous issue in Africa through my research in reading articles online. What I didn’t know was that the scale of poverty was so tremendous and that it’s very widespread in the continent. But in my paper, I will be focusing primarily on Sub-Saharan Africa. Before I started this research, I didn’t have much focus on this issue, but after learning this, I became more interested in it.

The gap extends far beyond school districts or rural United States. The divide surpasses borders and affects societies on a global scale. Four billion people from developing countries remain offline, representing 2/3 of the population residing in developing countries (ICT Facts and Figures, 2015). Of the 940 million population of least developing countries, only 89 million use the Internet—only a 9.5 percent penetration rate (ICT Facts and Figures, 2015). In under developed countries, only 7 percent have Internet access—well below the world average of 46 percent (ICT Facts and Figures, 2015). If a vast majority of citizens do not have access to communication technologies, how would a country be able to continue developing? If the country’s people are not growing intellectually, the country itself is at a standstill. Without assistance in development, development is extremely slow, flawed, or stopped

Faye, M. (2000). Developing national information and communication infrastructure (NICI) policies and plans in Africa. Paper presented at the Nigeria NICI Workshop,Abuja, Nigeria, 28–30 March.

The African government will have to go off the limits for tackling the issue of poverty here. Despite the intensity of the debate on causes and solutions to Africa’s poverty, no universal set of solutions has been developed. This is

What can be done can be done to bring countries in Africa out of poverty and get them to a status that allows them to compete with other global countries economically? A family is considered to be impoverished when they are making less than $1.90 U.S. dollars a day. Today seventy-five percent of the world’s poorest countries are located on the continent of Africa. Within Africa Sub Saharan Africa holds ten countries where majority of the population is living in poverty. Also in Sub Saharan Africa, 589 million people live without electricity. Around 80% of the continent’s population relies on biomass as their source of heat for cooking and cold climate. Out of a total one hundred, 37% of the people living without clean water live in Africa

Also, there is now wide ICT deployment in both the public and the private sectors though a lot of growth is expected in the forseeable future. The deployment of ICT has contributed largely to the rapid development of other sectors of the country’s economy and had been a backbone specifically in the growth witness in the financial service and telecommunication sectors whereby the have become more innovative in the products and services. Whereby, the ICT sector has seen the fastest sectoral growth of the Nigerian economy with average CAGR growth of 35% in the past decade (NBS). ICT sector contributed 5.46% to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2011 while private investment in the sector increased from US$50 million in 1999, to US$18.0 billion, in 2009, and $25 billion in 2010 respectively (Ministry Of Communication Technology, 2012) .

Most of the African countries are third world countries and, therefore, they have not fully developed. Nonetheless, Nigeria was able to sustain its enormous population through the various economic activities that continued to increase her GDP. Oil had consistently become a foreign earner in the country, thereby resulting in an upsurge in the economic growth. However, Nigeria also faced numerous challenges, thereby pulling it behind in terms of socio-economic developments. Some of the challenges prevalent in the country included HIV, malaria, inadequate health personnel, low expectancy rate and high infant mortality rates. Therefore, it was imperative for the Nigerian government to address the issues in order to improve the living