POVERTY

Technological advances have not adequately improved the situation for those living in poverty.
Critically analyze and evaluate the above statement.

Read the Introduction and indicate general statement on the topic, more detailed information, thesis and essay
outline.
Poverty is an issue that needs to be addressed as it is increasing worldwide and getting worse as time goes on.
A further increase in poverty may affect the living conditions in both developed and developing countries.
According to United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (2010), the reduction in the issue for
worldwide improvement, and there are various alternatives to eradicating poverty like education, health care,
water and sanitation and technology adoption. In such a context, it is argued that the use of technology needs to
be appropriate to the context of people living in poverty, in terms of social educational and economic situations.
However, it may be true that technological advances may create digital division between developed and
developing countries. Upon examination, it is clear that technological innovations have sufficiently improved the
situation for those living in poverty by the use of technological advances in agriculture through improvements in
crop incomes, improvements in health, and getting vital information using the Internet.
The ideas in the Body paragraphs are logically developed; however, they need suitable evidence. Choose the
correct cited information to support the ideas. Find the topic sentence, supporting ideas, counter argument,
refutation and concluding sentence in each paragraph.
Idea development
Agriculture in poor countries can benefit from the technological advances. The introduction of innovation into
agriculture helps to increase the income resources for poor farmers. A consistent increase in farmers’ household
income has been shown, which helps to reduce rural poverty, by the use of biotechnology in Uganda (Kassie,
Shiferaw & Moricho 2011). Biotechnology is improving production in both quantity and quality sectors. Therefore,
those poor farmers can command better price and increase their chance of escaping the poverty trap. Agricultural
technology might also induce changes in cropping patterns and allocation of farmers own resources to different
uses. Kassie, Shiferaw and Moricho (2011) also state that the farmers who adopt technology are more likely to have
access to use improved fertilizers as they have knowledge about the benefits of these fertilizers. In contrast, Tabi et
al. (cited in Okoboi 2012) state that only educated poor farmers have higher ability to grasp new technologies than
their counterparts with little or no education. The poorest farmers have no access to education, which leads to a
further increase in poverty, so they can never learn how to use the agricultural technology. This might be true, but a
combination of poor farmers and innovations in agriculture has been successful to improve the living conditions of
poor people in Soroti district, Uganda (Hansen 2008), as there have been implication of policies by agreement
between smallholder farmers and local governments. These policies enabled farmers to identify their agriculture
problems and take required decision to resolve them and hence provide a path to escape from poverty. Therefore,
adopting agricultural technologies can be an important pathway for poor farmers to increase their agriculture income
and to eradicate poverty.
Another aspect while innovative technology helps to improve poverty is health. In developing countries millions of
people suffer from health problems such as infectious diseases, malnutrition and complications of childbirth because
they are poor. Many innovative solutions have been developed by technologists to fight with these common health
problems of the poor. For example, Institute of Physics (2010) reports that water can be purified by using water
purification agent, which can be easily prepared by mixing iron oxide particles with olive or coconut oil. Therefore,
poor people those using this technological method of water purification are becoming healthier and hence they are
protecting themselves from infectious diseases. On the other hand, people living in impoverishment are not
financially strong enough to buy health related technological devices, as Dracup (2007) states that there is a lack of
adequate treatment for the people living in deprivation once they are diagnosed as they cannot afford the expenses
for their treatment. This might be true in some cases, but there are many charitable organizations working for the
well-being of poor people. For example, Nakamura (2011, p.38) introduces his organization, Kopemik, ‘where
innovation meets development assistance’ which provides a mechanism to develop innovative solutions for the
poorest segment of society, by connecting technology providers, technology seekers/NGOs and support through its
online website. Kopemik has already developed solar lanterns, solar rechargeable hearing aid and clean cook
stoves. These devices are affordable and help poor people to survive in remote areas. Thus, it is clear that
technological advances have shown a great role to improve the health of the poor living in straitened circumstances.
Internet technology also plays an essential role to alleviate the poverty as it is very useful for obtaining information
about various views such as online education and job application. There are hundreds of online programs which
offer students opportunities to study in their area but with a well-recognized degree, by which they can save a lot of
their budget. Take Vietnam for an example, there are nearly 200 higher education programs of 20 different fields,
which are in distance learning mode (Nguyen 2015). According to the research, 75% of the learners feel satisfied
 with the programs as they can save their communing time and costs. Owing to the rapid development of the internet,
working from home is becoming more popular than it was ever before. People living rural areas can still find a job
and work right at their home. McCartney (2013) claims that working through the personal laptop computers at home
will soon replace the office environment, and if any company wants to develop, they should create an environment in
which the employees can feel enjoyable with their personal space. Nevertheless, some may argue that in some
underdeveloped areas, people do not have good access to the internet. Admittedly, some people from unprivileged
areas may lack access to the internet; however, it will soon not be a problem because currently around 85% of
people around the world are already able to use the internet (McCartney 2013). It can be therefore concluded that
getting education and job opportunities are possible thanks to the popularity of the internet.

Read the Conclusion and find out the restatement of the main ideas, restatement of thesis and suggestions (if
any)
In conclusion, different technological solutions such as agricultural innovations, health improvement
technological devices, and the use of the Internet for education, can bring a lot of benefits for people living in
underprivileged areas. At the end, they can finally eliminate poverty in those areas. Governments in developing
countries therefore should provide the access of technology for the poor living in remote areas.