A PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS OF RURAL DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS IN BENUE STATE
A PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS OF RURAL DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS IN BENUE STATE
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Date
1990-11
Authors
ANONGO, AMBROSE LEO LYAM
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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