A PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS OF RURAL DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS IN BENUE STATE

No Thumbnail Available
Date
1990-11
Authors
ANONGO, AMBROSE LEO LYAM
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
I n r e c e n t t i m e s , development p o l i c y in N i g e r i a has l a id much emphasis in t h e a r e a of r u r a l development. The g e n e r al aim has been to r a i s e t h e s t a n d a r d of l i v i n g of t h e r u r al p e o p l e . The e n t h u s i a sm which p r e v a i l e d d u r i n g t h e p u r s u i t of t h i s p o l i c y goal had l e d to the e s t a b l i s h m e n t of many d i f f e r e nt i n s t i t u t i o n s at t h e d i f f e r e n t l e v e l s of government a l l of which were expected to c o l l e c t i v e l y achieve the r u r a l development g o a l. I n Benue S t a t e , t h e s e i n s t i t u t i o n s i n c l u d e t h e A g r i c u l t u r al Development P r o j e c t s , The River Basin Development A u t h o r i t y, The D i r e c t o r a t e of Food, Roads and Rural I n f r a s t r u c t u r e, Community Development A s s o c i a t i o n s at c e t e r a. These i n s t i t u t i o n s have so far f a i l e d to achieve t he a s p i r a t i o n s of t h e t a r g e t people. E a r l i e r s t u d i e s made in t h i s a r e a , blame the f a i l u r e of programmes and p r o j e c t s on s e v e r a l f a c t o r s some of which i n c l u d e i n a p p r o p r i a te i d e o l o g i c a l c o n c e p t s employed and t h e i r r e l a t e d s t r a t e g i cs of i m p l e m e n t a t i o n , the lack, of c a p i t a l to fund the p r o j e c ts a d e q u a t e l y , poor use of o t h e r m a t e r i a l and human r e s o u r c e s, i n a d e q u a t e p a r t i c i p a t i o n of t n e t a r g e t people in t h e planning and implementation d e c i s i o n s , and the u n f o r t u n a t e p o l i t i c al developments of tne d i f f e r e n t p e r i o d s. T h i s r e s e a r c h , is a l s o anotner attempt to probe the f a i l u r e s of t h e s e government sponsored r u r a l development p r o j e c t s . In t h i s r e g a r d , t h i s r e s e a r c h shows a s i g n i f i c a nt d e v i a t i o n from the t r a d i t i o n a l approach to the i n v e s t i g a t i on of the poor performance of rural development p r o j e c t s. Whereas past s t u d i e s were mostly concerned with the i n c i d e n t al e f f e c t s of i n d i v i d u a l p r o j e c t s and as such were unable to p r o j e c t the performance of a l l of the p r o j e c t s in the context of the t o t a l planning s i t u a t i o n involved, t h i s study evaluates the performance of the d i f f e r e n t r u r a l developments p r o j e c ts against the background of the t o t a l planning process. In other words, all of the above outlined causes of f a i l u r e are subsummed under one c e n t r a l i s s u e , namely, the effectuation of the process of planning and implementating the rural development p r o j e c t s. The central arguenent in t h i s study therefore is that rural development p r o j e c t s in Benue State have f a i l e d largely because t h e r e e x i s t s in the current process of planning and implementation serious lapses which are capable of i n h i b i t i ng t h e achievement of the desired development goals. The study aims at i d e n t i f y i n g such lapses and c o n s t r a i n t s inherent in the system through an evaluation of some selected p r o j e c t s and to propose more viable i n s t i t u t i o n a l and procedural changes which will f a c i l i t a t e the achievement of the target people's needs and a s p i r a t i o n s. The methodological approach was to take Benue State as a micro region, analyse and assess the appropriateness of the conceptual basis of the rural development p r a c t i c e here, analyse and assess the current machinery and process of planning with the view to identifying the constraints in the process and in the light of the above, evaluate the performance of a selected number of rural development projects in the context of Benue State environment. The purpose of the evaluation was to assess how much of the aspirations of the target people had been achieved by the projects and if not much has been achieved, to identify the constraints responsible for the poor achievement. The major findings at the end of the study are that the achievement of the aspirations of the target people through these rural development i n s t i t u t i o n s has been very low. This poor performance has been largely due to: a. a poor determination of project goals. These are often too wide, implicit, and unrelated to the planning context. b. the use of sophisticated equipment often in capital intensive projects which are not cost-effective. c. a lack of local participation in the decision making processes during planning and implementation. d. a poor use of monitoring and evaluation to enhance the planning and implementation of projects. Community development projects on the other hand are found to be small, unco-ordinated but relevant and cost effective as individual projects and often achieve the target people's aspirations. From the foregoing, it is therefore recommended here that, the process of planning and implementation should i n s t i t u t i o n a l i se local participation and i n s i s t on the related question of setting measurable and achieveable project objectives. The second recommendation is that the planning machinery particularly at the State level should be reorganised to integrate rural development a c t i v i t i e s at the community level with the national planning machinery and procedure. Thirdly, it is also recommended that there should be a more d e f i n i t e and coherent programme for rural development with a defined regional unit for implementation and specific measurable t a r g e t s to be achieved.
Description
Being a thesis submitted for the award of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy In the Department of Geography, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Ahmadu Bello University, ZARIA
Keywords
PERFORMANCE,, ANALYSIS,, RURAL,, DEVELOPMENT,, PROJECTS, BENUE STATE
Citation
Collections