New technologies for rural development
Information technology is growing leap and bounds around the world. Along with that if something is growing with the same pace are we, the people. Whatever we want to know, whatever we want to do and whatever we want to get is just a click away from our dreams. Nevertheless IT revolution has helped billions of people at remotest areas to make their dreams a reality for the first time ever in the history of current and earlier civilizations.
In fact in most of the cases they don’t have to move towards urban areas. That is because they can get better jobs and high standards living in their hometowns. Improved Internet access and connectivity can help nearly 3.4 billion of rural population, says a report. As per the recently published World Social Report, despite threats of Covid-19 shattering decades of progress in rural areas, the pandemic has also cleared ways for new technologies to fill up urban-rural divide.
New technologies for rural development
New technologies are creating fresh opportunities for progress in countryside, and a greener, more inclusive and resilient future, said UN Secretary-General António Guterres. Taking instance of the pandemic times, he said high-quality Internet connectivity coupling with flexible working arrangements created a number of jobs in countryside. Traditionally, these jobs and activities were available only in urban regions, Guterres explained his point.
Thanks to new technologies, people in rural areas now have opportunities to access digital finance, precision tools for better crop yields, as well as remote jobs. With eradication of or decrease in digital inequality, all this is collectively bridging the gap between urban and rural. The authors explained this with data. According to researchers, there are 67 percent of rural population in low-income countries, and 60 percent in lower-income countries.
Discrimination, depletion, degradation
Overall estimated number of rural population is 3.4 billion, accounting for nearly half the global population. The UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) published this report under the title, ‘Reconsidering Rural Development’. An astounding 80 percent of population living below the international poverty line is rural. Around one-fifth of rural population live in extreme poverty, with 400 percent higher rate than their urban counterparts.
These rural people miss even essential services such as education and health. Further, rural women, elders, and indigenous populations even face discrimination regarding land rights and employment. The report referred countryside areas as ‘natural capital’ that is continuously being depleted and degraded. Furthermore, deforestation-like practices account for temperature rise and spread of zoonotic diseases, such as Covid-19, making the situation worst.
New hope for digital, financial equality
The UN report has come up with new strategies to ensure development for rural people in pandemic times. That also at times when the world is taking action to re-energize economies, decrease inequalities and fight global warming. The strategy is based on “In Situ Urbanization” approach, focusing on betterment in lives of rural people where they are. This will help them enjoy the same living standards as their urban counterparts without bearing negative impacts of unsustainable urbanization.
Earlier in January last year, the World Social Report said, inequality was rising for over 70 percent of the global population, aggravating division risks and hampering socio-economic progress. According to the report, income inequality was growing in most of the developed, and some middle-income nations. However, the inequality growth was not inevitable and can be dealt with at national and international level, it had said. The latest report is new hope for countryside progress.
