Too Many Phones, No Jobs Created The high penetration rates of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in Uganda has not optimally translated into poverty reduction including jobs creation and entrepreneurial undertakings to fight poverty, a study has revealed.
The study, ‘Poverty and ICTs in Urban and Rural East Africa’ (PICTURE Africa), supported by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) was carried out in Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda, and involved a sample of 1,600 households consisting of 8,080 individuals in the four countries. The three year project found that although Uganda had increased in the use and access to ICT tools, especially mobile phones, many young people are jobless and have not tapped into the ICT potential. Many young people were observed to be spending more time beeping, or making less constructive chats over the mobile phones. “You would expect better opportunities search by youths using ICTs, but the case is different in Uganda, Dr.Henry Opondo, the Director for General Duties in Bank of Uganda, said Friday at the launch of the study report to research users in Kampala. He said, although many youths sampled in the study were educated, their ability to innovate and create income using ICT was being held back. “This is the paradox, government needs to address. Graduates have no jobs. Some study university courses, they do not even like,” Dr. Opondo added. The study also investigated about access, ownership, and usage of radios, televisions, VCR/DVD, landlines, computers, internet, email, mobile as the information and communication technologies widely used in the country and established that Internet use in Uganda had increased from 0.1% in 2000 to 7.7% in 2009, according to the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs statistics. Numerous steps had been taken by the Ugandan government to promote access to ICTs and information include legal, regulatory and policy development; consolidating the political leadership of the country's ICT strategy; and developing infrastructure. PICTURE uses a panel survey methodology. Phase one data collection took place in 2008 and the second phase data collection was undertaken at the beginning of 2010. Dr. Opondo said the findings disseminated last week were the results from the first wave of data collection in order to identify the dimensions of poverty associated with different usage of ICTs. Mr. David Obot, the Executive Director of the Network of Ugandan Researchers and Research Users (NURRU) that coordinated the research in Uganda informed the participants that dissemination of the findings will be shared widely with different stakeholders at various levels. He expects such information to make contributions to debates around ICT policy and poverty. Dissemination will reach various institutions including government ministries and statutory organizations for their use of such information for ICT policy related issues. NURRU brings together researchers and research users to tackle some of Uganda’s daunting socio-economic problems, through research and research output utilization. NURRU conducts research for socio-economic development aimed at poverty eradication in the country. Otherwise, important ICT-related policies in Uganda include the Rural Communications Development, National Broadcasting, and the e-Government Strategy Framework. Other government efforts in the development of the sector include the breaking up of a duopoly that was enjoyed by Celtel and MTN, the two mobile telephone service providers, from July 2005. At the regional level, the PICTURE study found that access to ICT was highest in Kenya for radio, VCR and mobiles, but low on landline, computers and internet connections and emails. “Radio was perceived to be the most important ICT across the four countries followed by mobile phones,” Dr. Opondo said. Education levels, sex, age and per capita expenditure showed an impact on the use of ICT. It found that rich people use most of the mobile phone functions aprt from beeping and receiving airtime. There is now an extensive uptake of mobile phones and related services in Uganda. According to 2006 figures, there were 108,100 fixed phone lines in use compared with 2 million mobile phones. There were 546 Internet hosts (2007) and 750,000 Internet users. kikonyogo _______________________________________________ LUG mailing list [email protected] http://kym.net/mailman/listinfo/lug LUG is generously hosted by INFOCOM http://www.infocom.co.ug/ All Archives can be found at http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ The above comments and data are owned by whoever posted them (including attachments if any). The List's Host is not responsible for them in any way. ---------------------------------------
