essay draft 3

Essay Draft 3

In today’s modern society, the trend of the development of digital technology has been more apparent over the years. This will continue to intensify in the future. This trend will be getting more apparent as many countries foresee the advantages. These advantages include broader academic development, a more conducive commercial landscape and better integration of information amongst people in the country. However, issues of digital disparity often surface, especially in developing countries such as China. According to China internet network information (2014), "the internet users in rural regions remain at 27.6% in comparison to 73.4% in urban regions". This indicates the issue of digital disparity.

The situation of the imbalance in the diffusion of internet access in urban and rural areas indicates the need for rural regions to better improve their exposure in digital technology. It is important as it would enable the rural community to better thrive in today’s competitive landscape of technological agriculture to be able to make improvements in their livelihoods.  

The adoption of technological techniques in agriculture farming would greatly improve efficiency in agriculture production and this would lead to improvements in their standards of living. Farmers are able to receive disaster warnings and weather forecast for their crops through technology (China Mobile Limited, 2009).  However, to enable farmers to gain access to these information, the first step is to get these people experiencing extreme poverty to be able to access to internet. 

The levels of internet access could be improved through subsidies by the ministry of finance to make enhancement in the technological skills of the citizens and also the usage of mobile commerce to the poor. Thereafter, the agriculture technology landscape of extreme poverty-stricken regions would then be possible. Farmers in poverty stricken regions such as Pingnan County is an example of aregion that has virtually no internet users and poor landscape for digital technology to develop. This results in minimal room for digital development in their agricultural sector.

The Chinese government has been making efforts to improve the situation of digital divide between the urban and rural region. According to the International Fund for Agriculture and Development (IFAD) (2014)), the Chinese government has attempted to venture into various rural areas such as Shanxi, Jiling and Anhui. However, the attempts to venture into poorer rural region remain a challenge for the Chinese government. According to a corporate report written by China Mobile Limited (CML) (2009), through analytical assessments, Pingnan County has the most number of people amongst rural regions living below the poverty line, with minimal developments and internet users. In addition, the landscape of Pingnan County lacks the basic digital infrastructure and is not favourable for potential digital development to thrive.  

This indicates the challenge of bridging Pingnan County to digital technology. These people are poor and can only afford to obtain necessities for themselves to get on with their lives. Pender (2008) states that, if these poverty-stricken continue to lack behind in technological advancements, the access to better agricultural techniques would not be possible. The poverty situation in these regions would not improve at all without technology. 

The very first step is to bring digital access to the Pingnan communities. The government would have to make changes in their policies and direction in terms of subsidiary incentives. This not only to equip them with the necessary technological skills but also convince these people to start adopting technology. According to the Economic intelligence unit (2012), to make improvements in the digital divide situation, a good start would be having a healthy number of internet users. Therefore, the Chinese government should change its policies to stimulate the growth in internet users. The foundation of having high internet users is to first ensure that the citizens are technology literate. Policies should include the necessary incentives to better attract contractors to provide services to educate citizens so that they will be technologically literate. 

The government can also adopt mobile commerce. Since it is one of the most viable ways for these rural citizens to be able to get internet access. According to Melanie (2014), an associate from Alizila, access to internet through mobile phones are more viable as people cannot afford personal computers and mobile networks have larger geographical coverage with decent speeds. On top of the cheaper alternative of mobile commerce, subsidies from government is another way to further reduce the cost. With that, the networking and telecommunication in these regions becomes more viable.

The benefits of networking can then be presented to poor communities such as the Pingnan County’s community. With the cheaper alternative of mobile commerce along with government subsidies, the people would be more open to changes. When the people are open to the technological change, the government can then attract contractors to develop the region as the area is now more profitable with the higher rates of users open to technology. 

With the basic foundation of technology being laid, the agricultural technology can then be introduced to the farmers in Pingnan County. According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (2011), “Because food represents a large share of farmer income and the budget of poor consumers, large price changes have large effects on real incomes”. This indicates that the information of commodities are crucial for poor farmers as they have their limits in terms of resources. These farmers can gain access on prices of different commodities and make decisions to ensure higher profitability. 

In conclusion, the government has to ensure that benefits such as the profits to contractors are taken care of. Also, the benefits of technology towards helping crops efficiency should be made known to the rural communities. The government should give out incentives and convince contractors on the potential of doing the job. The contractor would only do the job if it is profitable and when the contractor foresee the potential in developing the region. The citizens of the poor rural area would only be open to change and start using technology if the government is able to convince them to do so through subsidies, viable options and by also making the benefits of technology to their crops known to them. 

Through vigorous development, constant investment in rural areas and with time, the digital gap between the urban and rural region would eventually narrow. The situation of poverty would also improve drastically with more farmers adopting these technologies.

Reference:

International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). (2014, June). Corporate booklet – Investing in rural china. Retrieved October 1, 2014. From : http://ifad.org/operations/projects/regions/pi/factsheets/cn.pdf\

China Mobile Limited (2009, December). Corporate Social responsibility report. Retrieved October 1, 2014. From: (http://www.chinamobileltd.com/en/ir/reports/ar2009/sd2009.pdf

 Alizila – Ali Baba Group (2014, July 8). Mobile Commerce Is Thriving in Unexpected Places. Retrieved October 1, 2014. From: http://www.alizila.com/mobile-commerce-thriving-unexpected-places-video

Chinese internet network information center. Statistical report on internet development in China (2013, January). Retrieved October 1, 2014.From: http://www1.cnnic.cn/IDR/ReportDownloads/201302/P020130221391269963814.pdf

Economic intelligence unit (2012). Smart policies to close divide. Retrieved October 1, 2014. From:http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/un-dpadm/unpan049753.pdf\

Food and agriculture organisation of the United Nations (2011). Corporate booklet on food insecurity of the world. Retrieved October 25, 2014. From: http://www.fao.org/docrep/014/i2330e/i2330e.pdf

 

John Pender (2008). Research on Agricultural technology choices for poor farmers in less-favoured Areas of South and East Asia. Corporate booklet – Investing in rural china. Retrieved October 25, 2014. From: http://www.ifad.org/operations/projects/regions/pi/paper/5.pdf

Reader's response draft 4

The Euromonitor blogpost ‘Global digital divide persists but is narrowing’ (2011), infer through statistics provided by trade sources/national statistics that developed economies will continue to enjoy higher broadband diffusion rates. This results from larger government expenditure, advanced IT framework and higher wages that allow computer ownership. However, developing countries are slowly catching up due to the rapid economic growth. This has led to a wide range of effects on these societies, such as varying business opportunities, reducing urban-rural disparities with better information diffusion, social and cultural integration and altering government expenditure and policies.

In relation to the article, I would like to discuss is the issue of developing countries such as China, Nigeria and Indonesia having high potential in terms of sheer market size. Although the growth might be apparent in the short term, there might be other factors that might govern the ultimate success of each country. I would not agree that these countries are absolutely profitable in considering a business venture. There are many other factors to consider in determining the potential of a country. Uncontrollable natural forces might impact on the growth in any country. Statistics can only make hypothesis on the issue.

According to statistics that Euromonitor International provides, it is definitely true that these developing countries are catching up. However, there is definitely doubt in the sustainability of the growth displayed by the statistics. There are many different contributing factors when it comes to the measurement of a country’s economic growth. The statistics serves as a platform to formulate a hypothesis but it is still not a definite indicator to depict the overall picture of the situation. It is true that the broadband diffusion rates in developing countries have been growing relatively fast as compared to in developed countries. However, this might not be the representative of a whole country.

For the sake of discussion, I would like to take China as a case study in the analysis of developing countries. According to the Nanjing Marketing Group (2011), out of the total internet users in China, only 27.3% come from rural areas while the majority of users come from urban areas. This statistic starts questioning whether the growth would hit a ceiling as internet penetration in urban areas is so much higher than those in rural areas. This also bring the question on whether the internet would continue to grow in rural areas with the limitations of IT infrastructure foundations in those areas

The Chinese government has been channelling its resources to urban cities such as Shanghai and Beijing to continue to spur economic growth towards China’s journey of becoming an economical power in the world. However, the issue would be whether the Chinese government will channel some of its resources to rural areas. The development would happen but then it definitely would take quite some time to materialise as the basic foundation of building a modernized city is not as easy as it seems as it requires quite a large amount of money, planning and also time. Although the article has mention the benefits of improvement in disparity in the country, the Digital divide gap in the country remains relatively wide.

This brings me to the point of the contribution of wealth. According to BBC News (2014), in the higher end social classes of China, people are becoming wealthier as time goes by and is spending more money, but the spending still does not prove that the wealth is being distributed fairly as the statistics on digital disparity shows the difference in rural and urban areas. This shows that statistics are just a consensus of the whole country on average and not a true representative. The difference in digital disparity concludes that things cannot be seen in such a way that is assuming that everyone is equally affluent.

In addition to the point mentioned previously, there are also a number of contributing factors in determining a country’s growth in terms of the digital divide. An economy might be hit by certain uncontrollable factors such as financial crisis, natural disasters and political instability. Financial woes might cause a currency crisis, for example the Great Depression in 1930, which was preceded in many countries by bank runs and stock market crashes. This would then result in the downfall of an economy and indirectly it would also affect the digital divide when there are fewer absolute resources to distribute and channel amongst the different industries in a country.  Natural disasters such as the 2011 Japanese tsunami can bring down the economy overnight, where resources are being channeled to do recovery work. Political instability, such as the recent protests in Thailand, can deter investors to invest in the country. A developing country would then be slower in terms of recovery since their resources are much fewer as compared to developed countries. These factors are examples that the economic sustainability in the long run would not be definite and cannot be controlled or accurately hypothesize by the sole use of statistics.

In conclusion, statistics alone is not insufficient to make definite hypothesis of the progress and growth of a country. Many other unforeseen factors and policies might impact the absolute growth of any country. Government policies might be curved towards development in urban areas and rural areas continue to lag behind. It is hard to predict whether the growth in urban areas would hit a ceiling like developed countries and slow down growth, as the government continue to channel resources in these areas. Wealthier communities continue to be wealthier while the poor stay the same or becoming poorer.

The development of IT landscape of rural areas still remains slow and not well-developed in the short run. Natural disasters and financial turmoil might also immobilize the countries growth rate, and recovery would be slow as compared to developed countries who hold more resources. With this, developing countries are still lagging behind in comparison to their developed countries counterparts.

References:

Affluence of Chinese is growing. (2014 Feb 2) BBC News. Retrieved September 6, 2014, http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20140203-the-rise-of-chinas-wealth-dragon

Euromonitor International. (2011, February 2). Global digital divide persists but is narrowing. Retrieved August 25, 2014, from http://blog.euromonitor.com/2011/02/global-digital-divide-persists-but-is-narrowing-1.html

Nanjing Marketing Group. (2011, Oct 28). China rural urban internet usage. Retrieved September 6, 2014, http://www.nanjingmarketinggroup.com/blog/rural-chinese-internet-usage-2011_10_2

essay draft 2

In today’s modern society, the trend of the development of digital technology has been more apparent over the years. This will continue to intensify in the future. This trend will be getting more apparent as many countries foresee the advantages. These advantages include broader academic development, a more conducive commercial landscape and better integration of information amongst people in the country. However, issues of digital disparity often surface, especially in developing countries such as China. According to China internet network information (2014), "the internet users in rural regions remain at 27.6% in comparison to 73.4% in urban regions". This indicates the issue of digital disparity.

The growth in the diffusion of internet access in developing countries are mostly from people living in the urban regions of China and the improvement of the situation can be made through subsidies by the ministry of finance to enhance technological skills of the citizens and also the usage of mobile commerce to the poor so that it will be more viable for rural regions such as Pingnan County. Pingnan County is a province in Fujian, which is under extreme poverty with virtually no internet users.

However, the Chinese government has been making efforts to improve the situation of digital divide. According to the International Fund for Agriculture and Development (IFAD) (2014), the Chinese government has attempted to venture into rural areas. Investments have been done on the infrastructure for technology so that these people are able to adapt to the changing environment and market conditions. 

One of the contractors that is part of the government’s plan in rural area expansions is the China Mobile Limited (CML), who successfully set up a stable mobile network in various rural areas, such as Shanxi, Jiling and Anhui. People are able to receive disaster warnings and weather forecast for their crops through technology (China Mobile Limited, 2009). Despite numerous efforts to bring telecommunications and networking into these rural societies, the digital divide persists in China. From 2011 to 2012, the growth of internet users grew from 26.5% to a mere 27.6%. The slow growth might indicate that the efforts are not efficient enough. The divide is still very apparent with only 27.6 % of the overall internet users from rural regions(China internet network information (CINMC)(2014)).

However, the attempts to venture into poorer rural region remain a challenge for the Chinese government. According to a corporate report written by China Mobile Limited (CML) (2009), “The results of our initial assessment showed that income sources are limited in Pingnan County, with most people living below the poverty line". There are virtually no people using the internet and the developments in the country is very minimal. The county is sorely lacking the necessary investment and information to drive local development.”. This indicates the challenge in venturing Pingnan County. These people are poor and can only afford to obtain necessities for themselves to get on with their lives.

The attempt is ineffective. However, there are certain actions that could be done to better remedy the issue of venturing into poorer rural communities. The government would have to make changes in their policies and direction in terms of subsidiary incentives to not only equip them with the necessary technological skills and convince these people to start adopting technology. To make improvements in the digital divide situation, a good start would be having a healthy number of internet users (Economic intelligence unit (2012)). Therefore, the Chinese government should change its policies to stimulate the growth in internet users. The foundation of having high internet users is to first ensure that the citizens are IT literate (Economic intelligence unit (2012)). Policies should include the necessary incentives to better attract contractors to provide services to educate citizens so that they will be technologically literate.

Another action that the government can take is the introduction of mobile commerce. Since it is one of the most viable ways for these rural citizens to be able to get internet access. According to Melanie (2014), an associate from Alizila,” Mobile commerce’s high penetration rates in these rural areas is due primarily to issues relating to access to technology. The regions’ poorer residents can’t afford personal computers”. “Cellular networks offer better coverage and decent speeds.” On top of the cheaper alternative of mobile commerce, subsidies from government is another way to further reduce the cost. With that, the networking and telecommunication in these regions becomes more viable.

The benefits of networking can then be presented to the Pingnan County’s citizens. With the cheaper alternative of mobile commerce along with government subsidies, the people would be more open to changes. When the people are open to the technological change, the government can then attract contractors to develop the region as the area is now more profitable with the higher rates of users open to technology.

In conclusion, the government has to ensure that the benefits of both the contractors and the rural region citizens are being taken care of. The government should give out incentives and convince contractors on the potential of doing the job. The contractor would only do the job if it is profitable and when the contractor foresee the potential in developing the region. The citizens of the poor rural area would only be open to change and start using technology if the government is able to convince them to do so through subsidies and viable options. 

Through vigorous development, constant investment in rural areas and with time, the digital gap between the urban and rural region would eventually narrow.

Reference:

1. IFAD (2014, June). Corporate booklet – Investing in rural china. Retrieved October 1, 2014. From: http://ifad.org/operations/projects/regions/pi/factsheets/cn.pdf\
2. China Mobile Limited (2009, December). Corporate Social responsibility report. Retrieved October 1, 2014. From: (http://www.chinamobileltd.com/en/ir/reports/ar2009/sd2009.pdf
3.  Alizila (2014, July 8). Mobile Commerce Is Thriving in Unexpected Places. Retrieved October 1, 2014. From: http://www.alizila.com/mobile-commerce-thriving-unexpected-places-video
4.  Chinese internet network information center. Statistical report on internet development in China (2013, January). Retrieved October 1, 2014.From: http://www1.cnnic.cn/IDR/ReportDownloads/201302/P020130221391269963814.pdf
5.  Economic intelligence unit (2012). Smart policies to close divide. Retrieved October 1, 2014. From:http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/un-dpadm/unpan049753.pdf