AMIC conference topic

The reason for me coming to Yogyakarta is the AMIC, Asian Media Information and Communication conference. This year's theme is 'Transformational communication and New Asia'. It is not hard to guess that many presenters talked about new media, and media literacy.

One of the key questions in Asia is, does this new media transformation bring better life?
It is acknowledged that in Asia, poverty has decreased since 1980s by 10%. Many countries have broken out from underdevelopment.

 Development communication has succeeded in improving agriculture, health, environment. Developmental communication has given equal opportunities and more information to citizens. In Indonesia, family planning and anti-smoking campaigns have been conducted. But still,  a lot needs to be done. For example, here in Yogyakarta, I need to buy bottled water, I can not drink water from the tap. Big questions are how to provide shelter, electricity, water and health services to all citizens.

However, there is still poverty - in the world, there is 700 million malnourished people, and 2/3 of them live in Asia.

The conference concluded, that as long as there is poverty, we need developmental communication.
Community projects are important in development communication.