Issues, Challenges and Prospects in Rural Development Processes in Nigeria

Abstract

Over the years, rural development has contributed immensely to the development of man and his environment. Rural development is the process of improving the quality of life and economic well-being of people living in rural areas. The main objective of this paper is to examine the emerging challenges in rural development as well as rural development processes in Nigeria that impede sustainable rural development in the country. The occurrence of these problems and challenges not only impose detrimental effects upon the living conditions of the individuals, but also impose barriers within the course of their progression. The major problems that have been identified are, poverty, illiteracy, unemployment, homelessness and crime and violence. Illiteracy is when individuals do not possess the basic literacy skills of reading, writing and numeracy. Due to lack of literacy skills, they certainly experience problems in the implementation of tasks and activities. In achieving its objective, the paper clarified the concept of development and rural development as postulated by various scholars. It examines the modernization and dependency theoretical underpinning of the concepts. The study analyses secondary and empirical sources of data through qualitative methods. The paper posits that the rural areas have constituted majority of the nation’s population and serve as a base for food production. The paper argues that though various rural development policies have been initiated in Nigeria, the conditions of the rural areas has not changed much since independence. Rather, development policies in Nigeria have been tilted toward the urban areas while the rural areas live in extreme poverty and lack basic health, educational and social infrastructures. It identifies emerging challenges such as corruption and mismanagement of resources, poor policy implementation, famers- herders conflicts and lack of autonomy of the local governments. The study also provided the way forward by recommending more concerted efforts in implementing rural developments projects, punishment of corrupt public officials, effective budget monitoring, provision of security and conflict resolution mechanisms and participation of the rural populace in development projects. Therefore, in order to alleviate these problems and enhance the livelihoods opportunities of rural individuals, there have been formulation of measures and programs that have the main objective of promoting well-being of rural individuals.