REVIEW OF COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT INTERVENTION PROGRAMMES AND POVERTY ALLEVIATION IN RURAL NIGERIA.

Abstract

The survival of most nations of the world depends mainly on the survival of their rural communities because the rural
communities house about 75% of the population. These rural areas provides foods and raw materials for survival of the
urban centers. Rural development plays a key role in meeting the goals of national development in any nation
especially, the developing counties. In the case of Nigeria, Several administrations have tried various rural
development approaches however, no signicant success was achieved. Rural development relies on the effective
coordination of human and natural resources to tackle the chronic challenges of rural communities' development and
poverty to improve the quality of life of the rural populace. The study is a Review of Community Development
Intervention Programmes and Poverty Alleviation in Rural Nigeria.The broad objective is to understand the
performance of intervention programmes and poverty alleviations in rural Nigeria. The study relied on secondary data.
The paper show that many developmental programmes such as National Accelerated Food
Production Project (NAFP), Operation Feed the Nation, Green revolution, Directorate for
Food, Roads and Rural Infrastructure (DFRRI), National Directorate of Employment (NDE),
and Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme (Sure-p) were implemented in
Nigeria since independent but have not signicantly improve the standard of rural
live.Poor implementation of the programmes, top-down approach, inadequate
community participation, lack of grassroots planning, inability to optimize local
resources and neglect of community structural approach constitute a stumbling block to
the success of the intervention programmes However, the study recommends that the
needs of rural communities should be assessed adequately before embarking on
implementing the programs. It also recommended that the Government should diversify
to the agricultural sector to explore the potentials for job creation. The Government
needs to consider a bottom-top approach, improve current poverty alleviation policies,
enhance the provision of necessary socio-economic infrastructures through adequate
funding, and emphasize accountability and transparency.