Page 27 - combinepdf
P. 27
April 2017
Reducing Poverty with Information andeducing Poverty with Information and
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Communication Technologiesommunication Technologies
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Landscape of Bario (Image: Wikimedia Commons)
Dr. Roger W. Harris, founder of Roger Harris Associates
The world's number one Sustainable Development Goal (SDGs) adopts the ambitious target of ending poverty
in all its forms everywhere. In picking up where the Millennium Development Goals left o , the UN concedes
that more than 800 million people still live in extreme poverty and that one in ve people in developing
regions live on less than $1.25 a day. Other than this simple measure of income, global bodies acknowledge
that poverty is also manifested through other factors such as; hunger and malnutrition, limited access to
education and other public services, social discrimination and exclusion, and the lack of participation in
decision-making. Accordingly, understanding poverty requires the adoption of multi-dimensional perspectives
alongside diverse measures for reducing it. This article is about a particular approach to reducing poverty
within a speci c context. It describes the introduction of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs)
into a remote and isolated indigenous ethnic minority on the island of Borneo.
