ASSESSMENT OF PUBLIC INVOLVEMENT IN RURAL COMMUNITY TRANSFORMATION THROUGH IMPLEMENTATION OF INFRASTRUCTURAL PROJECTS

1.1 Introduction

Community involvement is a process by which community mobilizes its resources, initiates and take responsibility for its own developmental activities and share in the decision making and implementation of all other developmental programs for the overall improvement of its health, social and economic status.

Community involvement has long been associated with rural development. Regional planners believe that for projects to succeed, individuals in the community need to actively partake in designing, implementing, monitoring and sustaining the projects that affects their condition of living.

Rural development strategies whether they are technocratic, reformist or radical, regional balance and social equity. It is the constructive technical co-efficient, based on their own resource endowments that augment the additional support and determination for a strategy of rural industrialization.

As a prelude to other parts of this study, this chapter will discuss the background upon which this study was initiated, the statement of problems that led to this study, the Aim and Objectives of the study. Others are Significance of the study, Scope of work, Research hypothesis and questions, Limitation of the study and Definition of terms.

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1.2 Background of Study

Community involvement is provided and facilitated by various legal provisions. In many countries constitution provides the basic framework for empowerment of both the urban local government and the citizens. The mechanism of creation of Wards Committees, local groups, self help groups etc provides the structure for citizens’ participation. Institutions of local government are highly participatory, primarily by virtue of their close interface with local communities. It enables ownership of local development initiatives, which contributes to successful implementation of local development initiatives. Participation, in order to be meaningful, requires institutional capacity of the local governments to come up to the aspirations of local communities. Fiscal strength constitutes the most important parameter of institutional capacity.

According to Joseph Phillips (2003), project management is the practice of initiating, planning, executing, controlling, and closing the work of a team to achieve specific goals and meet specific success criteria at the specified time (Joseph Phillips 2003).

Citizen and Community involvement, therefore, becomes an imperative in strengthening fiscal strength of local government through generation of local government revenue and efficient allocation of the locally raised resources to various local development initiatives. Community involvement aims at involving the citizens in municipal functions, e.g., setting priorities, budgeting provisions, etc. They provide for the participation of citizens in the decision making process on local issues.

Participation of community members in local projects, therefore have has the potential to challenge, influence, modify and local village economy for the benefit of all. For instance, if projects targeting to enhance the local poor are appropriately planned and effectively managed, the local poor are likely to benefit and move from the level of dependency to that of self-reliance with the resultant effect of scaling down rural poverty. For this to be achieved, proper participation of the local people in terms of needs identification is required.

In managing rural development, the basic role of management is to plan, organize, direct and control, it is our collective view that managers lead other than plan, manpower rather than direct pattern rather than organize and assess rather than control. The effectiveness of management arises from leadership effort towards the simultaneous creation of a cooperative and learning organization to facilitate the implementation support rural and national development organization survival and effective utilization of resources for the benefit of mankind.

Therefore, in Nigeria where the research was carried out, the activities that was conducted is to know the Public Involvement in Rural Community Transformation through Implementation of Infrastructural Projects.

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1.3 Statement of Problems

Investigation revealed that development has been an incessant act in recent years yet most rural areas are been left out with little or no development. Having seen the negligence by the government, most communities have decided to come together in planning of the community’s development and management of projects in the said community, be it community inspired projects or not.

This research work is aimed at finding out how community members in the planning process and project management within the community of Abiriba in Ohafia local government area of Abia state.

This research work will as well determine whether there are other spheres of influence that can lead to Community involvement which may include:

1. Lack of good road network.
2. Poor infrastructural development
3. Inadequate health facilities
4. Inadequate educational facilities.
5. Curbing of rural urban migration and other community related issues.

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1.4 Aim and Objectives of Study

The aim of the study is to assess the Public Involvement in Rural Community Transformation through Implementation of Infrastructural Projects using Abiriba in Ohafia Local Government Area of Abia state as a case study. In achieving this aim, the following specific objectives were laid out as follows:

1. To analyze the extent to which the community is involved in socio-economic development projects;
2. To determine how the rural community in the study area participates in the development projects;
3. To examine the methods used to maintain and sustain the community projects in the research area;
4. To describe the various kinds of community development initiatives in the region under study; and
5. To examine the barriers that prevents local residents from participating in the study area’s rural development projects.

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1.5 Research Questions

The study came up with research questions so as to be able to ascertain the above stated objectives. The specific research questions for the study are stated below as follows:

• Does the rural community in the study area participate in the development projects?
• To what extent does community involve in socio-economic development projects?
• What are the various kinds of community development initiatives in the region under study?
• What are the methods used to maintain and sustain the community projects in the research area?
• What are the barriers that prevent local residents from participating in the study area’s rural development projects?

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1.6 Research Hypothesis

In order to pursue the objective of this study, the following generalized statements have been designed to guide and aids in obtaining the result for the experiment to be conducted. For this work, the null hypothesis will be represented with H0 while the alternative hypothesis will be represented with hypothesis H1.

Hypothesis One

• H0: The planning and execution of projects in the study area do not significantly correlate with Community involvement.
• H1: The planning and execution of projects in the study area significantly correlate with Community involvement.

Hypothesis Two

• H0: Finance is not a major problem militating against Community involvement in rural projects.
• H1: Finance is a major problem militating against Community involvement in rural projects.

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1.7 Significance of Study

The development of the rural areas mostly in Nigeria seems to be an unachievable task. Many a times, rural are projects are abandoned halfway by the government which in turn has adverse effect in the rural region. This is a cause of bad governance, lack of project materials or change in administration.

This outcome of this research is geared towards educating the rural populace on how to initiate projects, complete the project and manage the completed projects so as to enhance development in their immediate community.

This study will be of immense benefit to other researchers who intend to know more on this study and can also be used by non-researchers to build more on their research work. This study contributes to knowledge and could serve as a guide for other study.

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1.8 Scope of Study

The scope of the research is focused on the Assessment of Public Involvement in Rural Community Transformation through Implementation of Infrastructural Projects using Abiriba in Ohafia Local Government Area of Abia state as a case study.

This research will as well look into the spheres of influence of projects done in the community by the community members. Finally, it will look into the pattern of constituting projects in the community if it is bottom up approach or not.

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1.9 Limitations of the Study

During the course of this study, there were some problems encountered which stood as limitations to the research work. Some of the limitations include:

1. Time Constraint: The time frame given to accomplish this project was very short due to school academic calendar and it was carried out under pressure which made the researcher not to implement some necessary features.
2. Research Material: availability of research material is a major setback to the scope of the study.
3. Financial Constraint: Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection (internet, questionnaire and interview).
4. Initial Cooperation Delay from Respondents: A particular limitation of this work came as a result of the respondent refusal to offer their cooperation at the initial time they were contacted. This contributed in making the success of this research study difficult.