EFFECTS OF POVERTY ALLEVIATION PROGRAMMES ON RURAL
the urban areas than (6.5 percent) in the rural areas.
Poverty in Nigeria is a rural phenomenon where agricultural activities are most predominant. More than four-fifths (86.5 percent) of the households participated in agriculture in the rural areas compared with only 14.0 per cent in the urban areas. Gender wise, more males participated in agriculture.
Twenty-eight per cent and 15.3 per cent of males and females respectively participated in agriculture. The poor participated more in agriculture than non-agriculture. Twenty-five per cent of the core poor households were in agriculture, while 20.0 per cent were in non-agricultural activities. A similar pattern was revealed among the moderately poor households. The non-poor households participated less in agriculture (about 37.0 percent), with 46.1 per cent in non-agriculture.
Nigeria is a great country endowed with vast economic potentials but the level of poverty has made the realisation of self-sustenance far from being a reality. The need to reduce poverty to the barest minimum has been the major concern of the world over. Nigeria has a number of programmes designed to achieve poverty reduction. However, the challenge of implementation has been enormous. The increasing incidence of poverty, both within and among locations, was in spite of these programmes and schemes, suggesting that the programmes and schemes were ineffective and ineffectual (Obadan, 2002).
Given the foregoing, there is the need for a critical assessment of the poverty alleviation programmes in order to achieve poverty reduction. This will be a way of assessing the programmes and policies from the targeted beneficiaries' perspectives as reflected on their poverty level. The study was therefore set to assess the effects of poverty alleviation programmes on rural households' welfare in Ogbomoso local government area of Oyo state. Specifically, it aimed to:
1. identify the personal characteristics of the respondents in the study area
2. determine the level of participation of the respondents in poverty alleviation programmes
3. ascertain the welfare level of rural households in the study area
4. highlight the benefits accrued from participation in the poverty alleviation programmes
5. assess the constraints to participation i n t h e p o v e r t y a l l e v i a t i o n programmes in the study area
The study hypothesised that there is no significant relationship in participation in poverty alleviation programmes and welfare level of the respondents in the study area.
Methodology
The study was carried out in Ogbomoso South Local Government Area of Oyo State, which has her headquarters at Arowomole. It is situated within South-west region of Nigeria. The major occupation of people in this area are farming and trading, and the mostly cultivated crops are maize, cassava, leafy vegetable and cashew. There are also a number of small scale processing and manufacturing companies in the area.
A multistage sampling procedure was used to select the study sample. One-fifth of the villages in the local government area were randomly selected, which resulted in 6 villages. Then, 20 households were selected in each of the selected villages were using quota and systematic sampling techniques.
This gave a sample size of 120 respondents.
The data collected were described using frequencies and percentages, while Pearson's correlation analysis was used to test for significance between the variables in the hypothesis of the study.
Results and Discussion
Personal characteristics of respondents The personal characteristics of the respondents, as presented in Table 1, revealed that 34.9% of the respondents were between the ages 30 and 45 years, 35.0% of
them fell between 46 and 56 years while 29.9% of them fall between 57 and 72 years of age. The mean age was 50.84 years; this implies that the population of the study is fairly elderly. The result also shows that 57.5% of the respondents were male while 42.5% were female. This shows that male participated more in the poverty alleviation programmes. Results from the table also showed that 95.8% of them were married while 4.2% were widows; hence, married persons participated more in the programme than widows.
The result also showed that 95.0% of the respondents were of Yoruba tribal affiliation, 3.3% of them were Hausas while 1.7% of them were of Igbo tribal extraction. The distribution of the respondents based on education shows that 14.2% of the respondents did not attend any school, 28.4%
of them had primary school education, 16.7% had secondary school education while 40.9% of them had some tertiary education.
This implies that most of the people were fairly educated in the study area.
Table 1: Distribution of respondents by socioeconomic characteristics
Socioeconomic Characteristics Frequency Percent Age
30 - 45 42 34.9
46 - 56 42 35.0
57 - 72 36 29.9
Sex
Male 69 57.5
Female 51 42.5
Marital status
Married 115 95.8
Widow 5 4.2
Tribe
Igbo 2 1.7
Yoruba 114 95.0
Hausa 4 3.3
Education
None 17 14.2
Primary 34 28.4
Secondary 20 16.7
Tertiary 49 40.9
Source: Field survey,2010
Participation in poverty alleviation programmes
Findings from the study as shown in Table 2 reveals that the respondents indicated that 94.1% of them participated in National Special Programme for Food Security (NSPFS), 10.8% in Family Economic Advancement Programme (FEAP), 15.0% in State Economic Advancement programme (SEAP), 23.3% in Local Economic Environmental Management Programme (LEEMP), 6.7% in Farmers Development
Union (FADU), 2.5% in National Agricultural Credit and Rural Bank (NACRDB) while 1.8% participated in Agricultural Credit Corporation of Oyo State (ACCOS). This showed that most of the people in the study area participated more in NSPFS than in other programmes. This finding necessitated the need to probe the nature of the programme, which revealed that it is more participatory in design and implementation than the others.
The result also showed that 62.5% of the respondents attended programme meetings all the time, 32.5% attended sometimes and 125
only 1.7% of them did not attend programme meetings at all. This showed that most of the respondents usually attend programme meeting. The result also shows that 62.5% of the respondents indicated that they participated in decision-making activities.
The findings imply that most of the respondents participated adequately in the poverty alleviation programmes activities, in
which they were involved. The finding established that people generally participate in the poverty alleviation programmes introduced to them with the hope of getting the benefits accruable from them; though limitations in the success of the programmes have been adduced to the top-down approach of implementing them (Aliu, 2001).
Table 2: Distribution of respondents by participation in poverty alleviation programmes
Programmes Frequency Percent
National Special Programme for Food Security (NSPFS) 112 94.1 Family Economic Advancement Programme (FEAP) 13 10.8
State Economic Advancement programme (SEAP) 18 15.0
Local Economic Environmental Management Programme (LEEMP)
28 23.3
Farmers Development Union (FADU) 8 6.7
National Ag ricultural Credit and Rural Development Bank (NACRDB)
3 2.5
Agricultural Credit Corporation of Oyo State (ACCOS) 1 0.8 Attendant of programme meeting
All the time 75 62.5
Sometimes 39 32.5
Not at all 2 1.7
Participation in decision making activities
Yes 75 62.5
No 45 37.5
Source: Field survey, 2011 Welfare level of the respondents
The study adopted relative measure of poverty as used by NBS (2005), according to which household welfare was derived using the mean per capita household expenditure.
The households that spend ⅓ of the mean per capita (938.60 Naira) and below constituted the core poor category; those who spend between⅓ and ⅔ of the mean per capita expenditure (i.e.1,877.20 Naira - the poverty line) constituted the poor category; while the households that spend ⅔ of the mean per capita expenditure, i.e. above the poverty line were non-poor respondents.
Based on this categorisation of the welfare level of the respondents as given in Table 2 shows that 5.8% of the respondents were in the core poor category, 42.5% were in the poor category while 51.7% of them were in the non-poor category. This implies that most of the respondents are not poor. The finding that more than half of the respondents were in the non-poor category might be as a result of the activities of the various poverty alleviation programmes in the study area.
The veracity of this insinuation or otherwise will be established by the result of the hypothesis, which was reported later in the study.
Table 3: Distribution of the respondents by welfare levels
Welfare level Frequency Percent
Core poor 7 5.8
Poor 51 42.5
Non-poor 62 51.7
Source: Data analysis, 2011
Benefits accrued from participation in poverty alleviation programmes
The respondents were also made to respond to some statements bordering on benefits derived from the programmes. Results given in Table 3, shows that most of the respondents benefited substantially from the poverty alleviation programmes they participated in; with training being the aspect
in which most of them benefited. This is followed by adequacy of loan disbursed, and then by favourable terms of the loan disbursed. Most of them also benefited in terms of fulfillment of the objectives of the programmes and general improvement in the beneficiaries' enterprises. The sense of fulfillment of benefits derive from the programmes might be informed by the fact that most of the activities of the programmes centred on loan disbursement.
Table 4: Distribution of respondents by benefit accrued from programmes, n=120
Statements To a lar ge
extent
To a lesser extent
Not at all Weighted score The terms of the disbursed loan is
most beneficial
67.5 12.5 20.0 147.5
The disbursed loan is adequate and meaningful
56.7 35.0 8.3 148.4
The training given is beneficial 71.7 25.8 2.5 169.2 My ent erprises has been greatly
improved by the programme intervention
50.8 45.0 4.2 146.6
The objective of participating in the programme has been fulfilled.
7.5 46.7 45.8 147.5
Source: Data analysis, 2011
An index of accrued benefit was constructed from the responses, it was categorised above and below the mean scores as given in Table 4. The categorisation shows that 52.5% of the respondents had sub-optimal benefit while 47.5% of them had optimal benefit. The fact that more of the respondents fell within the
categories of those who had sub-optimal benefit can be explained by the fact that most of the programmes adopted top-down approach in their implementation. This is consistent with the view of Obadan (2002), who advanced the same reason for the limited success recorded for the poverty alleviation programmes that have been implemented in the country.
Table 5: Distribution of respondents by level of benefits derived from programmes
Benefit category Frequency Percentage
Sub-optimal benefit 63 52.5
Optimal Benefit 57 47.5
Total 120 100.0
Source: Data analysis, 2011
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C o n s t r a i n t s t o p a r t i c i p a t i o n i n programmes
Respondents indicated the constraints they encountered while participating in the poverty alleviation programmes. Result on Table 5 shows that the constraint items that affected most of the respondents were inconsistent programme policy (154.1), f o l l o w e d b y p o o r p r o g r a m m e implementation (145.8), and financial capacity of the programmes (114.9) in that
order. Others are programme distance to their residence, political discrimination and lack of awareness. These problems are serious because they are capable of affecting the core of the programmes. The highlighted constraints by the study are as recognised by a number of authorities (Obadan, 2002; Aliu, 2001 and CBN, 1999) in previous studies, which implies a serious issue in the conceptualisation and implementation poverty alleviation programmes in the country.
Table 6: Distribution of respondents by constraints to participation in programmes
Constraints Serious
constraint
Mild constraint
Not a constraint
Weighted score
Illiteracy 3.3 53.3 43.3 59.9
Financial capacity 48.3 18.3 33.3 114.9
Distance from the residence 24.2 54.2 21.7 102.6
Inconsistency in policies 70.8 12.5 16.7 154.1
Poor programme implementation 65.8 14.2 20.0 145.8 Lack of awareness implementation 13.3 61.7 25.0 88.3
Political discrimination 49.2 2.5 48.3 100.9
Gender discrimination 2.5 46.7 50.8 51.7
Source: Field survey, 2011 Hypothesis Testing
The study used multinomial logit regression model to test the stated hypothesis, which sought to relationship between extent of respondents' participation in the poverty alleviation programmes and their welfare levels. The result of the analysis, as given in
Table 6 shows that the probability of people being in the core poor category (Y=0) is significantly reduced by their participation in the poverty alleviation programmes (t= -4.670; p=0.000) at 0.05 level of significance.
This implies that participation in the programmes impacted significantly on the welfare levels of the respondents in the study area to have precluded them from being in the core poor welfare category.
Table 7: Multinomial logit regression for relationship between participation in programmes and poverty
Variable Coefficient t – value p-value
Marginal effects on Prob.(Y=0; core-poor)
Participation -0.2762181738 -4.670 0.0000 Marginal effects on Prob.(Y=1; poor)
Participation 0.06456613783 0.517 0.6051 Marginal effects on Prob.(Y=2; non-poor)
Participation 0.2116520360 1.687 0.0917 Source: Data analysis, 2011
Conclusions and Recommendations
Participation in poverty alleviation programmes was significantly skewed in the
study area, due to the factor of participatory nature of the programmes. Moreover, participation in the poverty alleviation programmes was found to take people out of the core poor category but not to the non-poor category, which is the most desired