ICT AND POVERTY ALLEVIATION AND THE DIGITAL DIVIDE

ICT AND POVERTY ALLEVIATION AND THE DIGITAL DIVIDE

Amr E. Odeh,

Amr.odeh@gmail.com

Arab American University,

Jenin, Palestine

ABSTRACT

This paper aims to discuss the top-down and bottom up approach and their effectiveness, and which is better in Palestine. And it will discuss the issues of digital divide.

Through the writing of this paper found that the top-down approach is more effective in Palestine. And developments occur to those who benefit from the technology and not to those who have technology.

KEYWORDS:   digital divide, poverty alleviation, top-down approach, bottom up approach, 2012, Palestine, Amr, aauj, ICT

DISCUSSION

When we talk about the digital divide between developing and developed countries should not be a comparison only in terms of access, but must be in terms of who has the ability to use technology and the Internet, also the content is very important when we have a rich content that help us to reduce the gap between developing and developed countries. The ability to use technology is important, because through that we can gain knowledge.

We cannot consider that the technology is the main reason for the gap between the developing and developed countries. There are other reasons must be taken into account, including the low level of education and the way in which they are teaching. Education in the traditional way kills creativity and the student become not able to search for information.

And the other reason is the Arabic content on the Internet; it does not exceed 3%, according to a report by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU, 2012).

There are two effective ways can be used, top-down and bottom up approach, Top-down approach powered from the government, the government is working to customize projects according to the culture and people's need.

For example how to take advantages of the use of technology in education and in the economy and facilitate the lives of people in accomplishing their daily tasks.

Turkey's government launched Fatih project to teach Education (Khawatir, 2012) it is one of the major projects in Turkey, and Turkey is one of the most developed countries in recent years.

For bottom up approach NGOs is not a good example because it offers projects that do not fit with our culture or the reality that we live with and most of these projects stop at the end of the support. The best change from bottom up approach that there will be youth groups working to enrich the Arabic content on the Internet and other groups working to spread the culture of how to take advantage of the technology.

Bottom up approach is useful in small projects but in large projects the top-down approach is better.

Within the Palestinian context the top-down approach is more effective, because if the government can make Tawjihi two years (and this is not good) it's better for the government to change the way of traditional education and make it more effective, and that will raise the development effectively.

RESULT

Developments occur to those who benefit from the technology and not to those who have technology.

REFERENCES

 ITU, (2012) International Telecommunication Union http://www.aljazeera.net/news/pages/019f6455-1c6c-4023-892c-96f2d8dd5147

Khawatir, Ahmad Al Shiqairi (2012) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Na0BZlqNyv8&feature=g-user-u