IMPACT OF INFRASTRUCTURAL DEVELOPMENT IN A RURAL AREA
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IMPACT OF INFRASTRUCTURAL DEVELOPMENT IN A RURAL AREA
ABSTRACT
Rural development has remained a difficulty for both developed and developing countries as part of higher national development. To achieve the intended rural development, developing countries,
like Nigeria, have used a variety of rural development approaches over the years. The purpose of the study was to investigate the impact of infrastructure on rural development in Doko, Niger state.
The research had three local governments as its geographical scope, and its topic scope covered schools, energy, market roadways, and healthcare facilities. A total of 120 questionnaires were returned from both rural and staff respondents, and data was acquired mostly from primary sources,
with qualitative and quantitative data analysis methods applied. The study’s findings indicate a favourable and significant relationship between infrastructure availability and rural growth. The government, according to the research, should invest in extra infrastructure to help rural areas develop.
CHAPITRE ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background Of The Study
The global desire for rural development necessitates a careful examination of the relationship between infrastructure and rural development. Infrastructures such as roads, power, education, healthcare, communication, water, and markets are critical for rural development and job creation, which improves rural people’s living conditions and reduces the occurrence of rural poverty.
According to Egunjobi (1987), infrastructure is important to rural socioeconomic life from three perspectives. For starters, they encourage economic activity. Second, they benefit society, and third, they prevent rural depopulation.
According to a United Nations (2013) report, rural poverty is increasing across much of the globe. Around 1.2 billion people in the world live on less than a dollar, which is ascribed to a lack of infrastructure that would encourage and enable socioeconomic activity, thereby empowering rural people and improving their well-being.
Regional Economic Communities (RECs) have been highlighted as crucial building blocks for increasing rural people’s well-being, and infrastructure is seen as the key accelerator for transforming Africa. Numerous studies,
analyses, and forums conducted by the African Development Bank (AfDB) and others have revealed that inadequate and underperforming infrastructure facilities such as schools, markets, electricity, roads, and healthcare have been one of the most significant constraints to Africa’s growth and competitiveness.
The key to unlocking Africa’s growth potential was investment in infrastructure, notably in education, which is critical to individual, communal, and national development. Despite these educational opportunities for rural and national development, the education sector receives little attention.
Previous federal budgets, for example, have demonstrated this neglect, with 12% allocated to education in 2007, 10% in 2008, 11% in 2009, 9% in 2010, 9% in 2011, 9.5% in 2012, 8.43% in 2013, 10.7% in 2014, and 8.4% in 2015 (Federal Ministry of Education, 2014).
This indicates that education has not received the required priority in national budgets, as it is well below the United Nations’ minimum of 26% for education.
The Millennium Development Goal (MDG) recently concluded developing the Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA) with input from African governments. This continental strategy, based on regional infrastructure projects and programmes, will assist in addressing infrastructure shortfalls that severely limit Africa’s competitiveness both inside the continent and in the global market.
Continued growth and affluence will increase demand for infrastructure, which is already one of the continent’s major hurdles to long-term development. At various times, successive Nigerian governments sponsored numerous projects targeted at rural development, such as the Agricultural Development Project (ADP), the River Basin Development Authority (RBDA), and the Directorate for Food, Road, and Rural Infrastructure (DFRRI).
Ariyo (1991) concludes that most scholarly attempts to evaluate the performance of ADP, RBDA, and DFRRI in terms of real extent, effectiveness, and impact, size and target population reached, level of production attained, and quantity and quality of infrastructure developed, are unimpressive.
According to him, rural development institutions such as those mentioned have produced limited results, resulting in past deficiencies such as institution proliferation, a lack of capacity building, institutional duplication, insufficient funding, unjustified public intervention, and poor policy.
In order to remedy past failures, the federal government launched a new programme on infrastructure development in 2013. The National Integrated Infrastructure Master Plan (NIMP), a 30-year national integrated plan established by stakeholders to address the issue of insufficient infrastructure in the medium and long term, has been fully approved by Goodluck Jonathan’s administration.
The NIMP requires a $3 trillion investment over a 30-year period, from 2013 to 2043. Energy is worth roughly $1 billion; transportation is about $775 billion; agriculture, water, and mining are also worth billions.
$400 billion, $350 billion for housing and regional development, $325 billion for ICT, $150 billion for social infrastructure, and $50 billion for critical registration and security.
However, a similar plan was developed in Doko, Niger state, but on education. The Education Master Plan 2012-2020 for Doko, Niger state was developed to address the infrastructural problem in the education sector. Lack of a comprehensive infrastructure development plan or policy, without a doubt, impedes rural development.
Against this backdrop, this study examines the effect of infrastructure on rural development in Doko, Niger state, with a view to proposing solutions on how to improve on its provision, focusing on three local governments’ Batagarawa, Mani, and Dandume as the geographical scope and school, market, road, electricity, and healthcare as the subject scope.
1.2 Statement of the Problem
Switzerland was placed top in terms of excellent infrastructure, with a score of 6.7, which includes transport, telephone, and energy. Namibia was ranked first in Africa with a score of 5.3,
followed by Tunisia with a score of 5.0, South Africa with a score of 4.8, ranked 43 in the world and third in Africa, Rwanda with a score of 4.6, and Nigeria with a score of 120 and 56 in the world and Africa, respectively (Pendse 1980, Abosedra et al 2009).
According to the World Bank, bad infrastructure makes a country less appealing to investors. This explains why Nigerian governments have been unable to attract international investors despite signing many bilateral agreements and making repeated invitations for foreign companies to come and invest in Nigeria.
Nigeria has a number of situations of poor infrastructure. These include intermittent power supply, a lack of piped water, a scarcity of fuel, unreliable healthcare, unstable educational institutions, substandard roads, malfunctioning ports, and erratic telecommunication services.
Iwayemi (2008) painted a bleak image of Nigeria’s power status, lamenting that for the previous three decades, insufficient quantity, quality, and access to energy services have been a recurrent feature in Nigeria. In the communication sector, for example, poor connectivity across Nigeria’s telecommunication industries has led to public complaints about network failure and other undesirable practises.
It is claimed that each of the major telecommunication companies uses over a million litters of fuel daily to power generators at their installations across the country, incurring additional costs that are usually passed on to final consumers.
In Nigeria, the cost of doing business has increased due to inadequate infrastructure. A base station for telecommunications in South Africa is projected to cost 250,000 US dollars, while the same station in Nigeria requires 375,000 US dollars (Obadare, 2006).
The poor state of Nigeria’s health-care system is one of the factors contributing to the country’s low life expectancy of 50 years, while Malaysia has a life expectancy of 70 years. Similarly, immunisation against measles among children aged 1-2 years was 35% in Nigeria, while it is 80% in South Africa.
In terms of sanitation, South Africa has 79%, while Nigeria has less than 50%. Nigeria has a 53% mortality rate, which means that for every 1,000 infants, 101.4 die, whereas South Africa has a rate of 19.6 (World Bank, 2012).
For electricity generation, the United States of America with a population of approximately 316 million has 848,300 Megawatt capacity, South Africa with a population of 42.7 million has 44.650 Megawatt capacity,
but Nigeria with a population of 140 million can only generate 4,000 Megawatt, implying that approximately 85 million people lack access to electricity services. By 2010, only 40% of Nigeria will have access to electricity.
Nigerian roads have a variety of issues, including bad design, insufficient drainage, a lack of maintenance, single lane and severe bends, and so on. According to a 2002 survey on the State of High-Way Roads in Nigeria,
the majority of Nigerian roads require complete rehabilitation due to major cracks, depression, broken down bridges, and numerous potholes that make road transport slow and unsafe.
In the education sector, the problem of insufficient infrastructures manifests itself in obsolete laboratories and overcrowded class rooms. Many of the laboratories and workshops were antiquated, with overcrowding, scarcity, broken equipment, and in some cases, kerosene heaters being used as Bunsen burners, particularly at the Universities of Jos and Uyo (Need Assessment, 2011).
Doko, Niger state, in Nigeria’s northwestern region, is not immune to the lack of infrastructure. For example, in 2009, less than 40% of women reported access to antenatal care for their last delivery,
fewer than 3% of children received full immunisation by the age of one, and fewer than 15% of women reported delivery of their last child at a facility under the supervision of a skilled birth attendant (Doctor, et al. 2011).
Similarly, in the education sector, the narrative of inadequate infrastructure is the same; for example, classroom provision in elementary, JSS, and SSS stood at 45%, 72%, and 85% of total requirement, respectively.
Again, the supply of pupils’ furniture in these classrooms in the state was 65% for elementary schools and 50% for junior and senior secondary schools in 2009/2010, which is less than the UNESCO criterion that a class should not have more than 30 kids (UNESCO, 2010).
Water provision is another area that has been severely impacted in the last five years; only 1,000 communities have access to potable water through bore-hole construction in all nooks and crannies of the state, which is far too insufficient as many communities remain without safe drinking water (KMSRD, 2015).
Without electricity, no economy or community can brag of any infrastructure expansion. Doko, Niger State, was only able to link 183 communities to the national grid from 2000 to 2016, but only 11 communities per year.
Given the State’s population of almost 5 million people, about 80% of whom live in rural regions (KSREA, 2015), this is extremely inadequate.
In essence, the topic of this study is rural underdevelopment in terms of inadequate provision of facilities such as markets, electricity, schools, water, and communication, which is why rural areas in the state fall behind in terms of development. Rural underdevelopment could only be addressed with proper infrastructure provision, which was the study’s concern.
1.3 Objectives of The Study
The primary goal of this research was to investigate the impact of infrastructure on rural development in Doko, Niger state.
The following are the specific objectives of this research:
The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of school infrastructure on rural development in Doko, Niger State.
The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of power infrastructure on rural development in Doko, Niger state.
iii. The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of marker infrastructure on rural development in Doko, Niger State.
To investigate the impact of road infrastructure on rural development in the Niger state of Doko.
To investigate the impact of healthcare facilities on rural development in the Niger state of Doko.
1.4 Research Questions
Is there a strong link between school infrastructure and rural development?
Is there a link between power infrastructure and rural development?
iii. Is there a strong link between market infrastructure and rural development?
Is there a connection between road infrastructure and rural development?
Is there a strong link between healthcare infrastructure and rural development?
1.5 Significance of the Research
In theory, this study will make several additions to the literature on rural development. To begin, the essential infrastructure for rural development, such as schools, markets, roads, healthcare, power, and healthcare, must be integrated and identified.
Eneh (2011), Akpan (2012), Ibok (2013), and Eneflok (2013) conducted previous studies that did not thoroughly explore the relationship between infrastructure and rural development empirically because most of these studies were conceptual in nature. As a result, by conducting an empirical study on rural development, our study is significant in addressing this gap.
Second, by establishing a link between infrastructure and rural development, the current study will add to the existing literature. Third, prior rural development studies were generally undertaken in western contexts,
while those conducted in Nigeria were mostly in the southern environment; this study thus filled the contextual gaps by being conducted in the northern context.
Thus, in addition to theory and literature development, this study is important in a practical sense since it provides insight into rural development mechanisms to public sector organisations, foreign development organisations, and local donor organisations.
Governments at all levels, federal, state, and local, stand to profit much from this study in practise by incorporating it into policy and programme development and implementation.
From a methodological standpoint, because most studies on rural development have used a qualitative approach, such as Yahaya (2010), Ale (2011), Ogunowo (2012), Adesoji (2013), and Idara (2014),
this study is significant because it used a triangulation approach, where data was collected using three different methods (questionnaire, interview, and observation), thus filling a gap by using a more scientific approach to rural development research.
1.6 Scope of The Study
This research looks at the impact of infrastructure on rural development in Doko, Niger State. The selection of these Local Governments was informed first and foremost for a fair representational purpose, as they are all located in rural areas (NBS, 2010). Third, the governments chosen to serve as geographical scope were chosen because they could best address the research problem and aims.
1.7 Limitations of the Study
Several limitations were encountered when conducting this type of study, including: First, some material that was very relevant to this study could not be obtained from officials of the relevant ministry because some information was classified confidential,
particularly information pertaining to rural development expenditure. Another obstacle experienced by the researcher was a lack of financial resources. Third, the time limit that the programme requires for completion is another constraint to this investigation.
Despite the study’s constraints, the first limitation was overcome through the use of primary data obtained via questionnaire, interview, and observation, and the study’s validity and reliability were established through the use of the SPSS package, which has a high degree of accuracy in data analysis.
1.8 Definition of Terms
Various scholars defined concepts such as rural, rural development, infrastructure, and infrastructure, and operational definitions were offered or accepted from other researchers.
Rural
According to Atchoargrena (2003), the term rural refers to locations outside of cities where people live in agricultural, wooded, hilly, and natural settings. It is also seen as a location devoid of social facilities when compared to urban areas.
In this study, a rural area is defined as a settlement where the majority of people are poor and lack means of subsistence, a place where the majority of people labour on farms, and there is a lack of infrastructural services.
Development of Rural Areas
Adewumi (1987) defined rural development as a broad approach of social transformation aimed at achieving a more fair distribution of resources within society and a genuine acceptance of the notion of growth from below.
Rural development is the process of enhancing the quality of life and economic well-being of individuals who live in remote and sparsely inhabited places. The term “rural development”
as used in this study refers to an effort to improve the living standards of rural inhabitants by providing infrastructure such as roads, power, healthcare facilities, schools, and markets.
Infrastructure
According to Frischmann (2007), infrastructure is an asset that houses social services. Typically, the phrase refers to the technical infrastructure that underpin a society’s social and economic activity. In this study, infrastructures refer to utilities such as roads, electricity grids, schools, healthcare, roadways, and markets.
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