Essay About Rural Development And Delivering Agencies

Rural Development: Problem and Prospects in Local Government
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Experience has however shown that most local
government councils have woefully failed to do that.
Certain reasons account for this state of affairs,
among which are: in many instances those who do
not reside permanently in the local government areas
are either appointed or “elected” into local
government Councils, hence they are out of tune with
the existing conditions in their supposed locality;
most of the “elected” local government officials
administer Odukpani local government area from
Calabar, the state capital. In fact, the Chairman of
Council and most of the Councillors and Council
workers reside in Calabar and its fringes.
Lack of requisite infrastructure: Some rural
communities are yet to enjoy such facilities as roads,
markets, electricity, basic health services, extension
services rural banking, and co-operative societies,
etc. The existence of such functional infrastructure in
the rural areas would among others: check the
migration of rural dwellers to the urban centres. The
establishment of cottage and craft industries, which
would provide employment for would-be migrants;
encourage private sector investments in the rural
communities and, enhance the rapid urbanization
of some rural settlements in the country, are
dependent on the provision of adequate
infrastructure.
Lack of or inadequate feasibility studies before
projects are undertaken. It is not an over statement to
argue that most rural development programme fail
because the policy makers did not carry out on the
necessary feasibility studies on problem situations
and its possible remedies. The poor results often
recorded are accentuated by apparent definitional
problems of the situations on ground. Problem
clearly defined is problem half solved, and a good
feasibility study conducted at the outset is a sine- qua
– non.
Skyrocketing rate of inflation in Nigeria has affected
the costs of the projects. This sometimes results in the
abandonment of ongoing/approved projects by some
delivering agencies, if the initial values of the projects
are not reviewed.
Wrong choice of communication channel to reach the
target population. For instance, the erstwhile
MAMSER, and its successor, the National Orientation
Agency, to a large extent adopted the use of Radio,
Television and Newspapers, as her major media to
get to the rural dwellers. This however, impacted
World