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AN ASSESSMENT OF THE POVERTY ALLEVIATION POLICIES
IN NIGERIA
ABSTRACT
The
objective of this study is to evaluate the impact of pro-poor policy towards
alleviating poverty in Nigeria. This will take a critical look into the already
formulated policy framework and assess its strengths in creating an overall
enabling environment for national and international actions towards the
eradication of poverty. Also ways of overcoming the structural bottlenecks in
Nigeria with a view to ultimately put the country back on a path of accelerated
growth and sustainable developing will be enunciated. In this thesis, the
primary focus is concerned to illustrate and take a cursory analysis of the
past and present poverty alleviation programmme in Nigeria. This is being put
into perspective, particularly now that all efforts of both the government, Non
– Governmental Organizations, Community Based Organization and multilateral
organizations operating in the country are geared towards poverty alleviation.
Rejecting the top-down approach of the previous poverty alleviation policy,
which implementation could not be said to have made any meaningful impact to
the high incidence of poverty among the Nigerian populace. This study will look
at the current policy to ascertain its viability in achieving its targeted
goals and objectives. The brief final section of the paper makes some
recommendations on the way forward in at least meeting the much-orchestrated
objective of the United Nations in its Millennium Agenda of poverty reduction
strategy.
TABLE
OF CONTENTS
Title
Page - - - - - - - - - - i
Certification - - - - - - - - - ii
Dedication - - - - - - - - - iii
Acknowledgement - - - - - - - - iv
Abstract - - - - - - - - - - vi
Table
of Contents - - - - - - - - vii
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
1.1
Introduction
1.2
Statement of the Problem
1.3
Aim of the Study
1.4
Research Hypothesis
1.5
Methodology
1.6
Theoretical Framework
1.7
Scope and Limitation of the Study
CHAPTER TWO
2.1 Literature Review
CHAPTER THREE
3.1 Historical Background of the Policy of
Poverty Alleviation Programme in Nigeria
3.2 Family Support Programme
3.3 Family Economic Advancement Programme
3.4 The Present Poverty Alleviation Policy
3.5 Overview of the Poverty Alleviation Programme
of Present Chief Olusegun Obasanjo Administration
CHAPTER FOUR
4.1 Analysis of the Poverty Alleviation Policy
4.2 Analysis of the Present NAPEP
4.3 Good Governance
4.4 Lack of Good Policy Formulation and
Implementation
CHAPTER FIVE
5.1 Summary
5.2 Recommendation
5.3 Conclusion
Bibliography
CHAPTER
ONE
1.1 INTRODUCTION
Nigeria like most developing countries
is trying to priorities its public expenditures and policy actions according to
the impact on development and poverty alleviation among its citizenry. Although
these policies sometimes tend to be general and declaratory in nature, there
are also many examples of good practice. Nigeria as a country, has come closer
to a comprehensive approach to poverty reduction, based on National Poverty
Alleviation Programme, and the integration or planned integration of the
poverty orientation into the medium term expenditure framework and budget
processes.
The policy framework is captured in
the three key elements that were set out inter alia: first, a comprehensive
understanding of poverty and its determinants; second, choosing public actions
that have the highest poverty impact; and third, participatory setting of
targets and monitoring of outcome indicators. This provides a basis for
systematically reviewing trade off among different types of action, policy and programmes and use of
limited public resources mainly fiscal and institutional capacity. In Nigeria,
as the case study, the application of this pro-poor policy framework will
merely represent an intensification of efforts already underway by past
governments.
Furthermore, in understanding of
poverty and its determinants is fundamental to determining appropriate public
actions. Policy formulation should start from a dis-aggregated understanding of
who the poor are, where they live, and their source of livelihoods. This
enables an exploration of poverty determinants, which includes but is not
limited to social sectors. Nigeria could work through and select what is
important in this particular case. For Nigeria where there is unavailability of
data and institutional capacity, as well as past scrutiny, this analysis should
focus on the incidence and profile of poverty.
In choosing public actions with the
highest poverty impact, given the budget constraints that stare the face of
Nigerian government, and particularly the limited revenue available in the
country, there is a need to priorities among alternative interventions and
choose those which, at the margin, have the largest poverty impact.
Understanding the causal mechanisms underlying poverty outcome is key to
determining appropriate public action(s). The multiplicity of causal factors
means that a variety of measures can be contemplated to improve a particular
outcome, involving action on either a single cause or a set of causes. These
will have different costs, and are likely to have different knock-on effects on
other outcomes.
It is important to emphasis multiple
paths of causation and the necessity for an integrated view, across areas of
public action and areas of outcomes. For example, good governance is critical
to empowerment, but is clearly equally critical to the improvements in outcomes
in poverty, capabilities and security. The key dimensions of outcomes mirror
the themes of the World Development Report 2000, although here, in order to
highlight the direct operational relevance of the approach, opportunities and
capabilities are distinguished in order to correspond to areas of public
action: reducing barriers to access and improving service delivery. One
universal prescription at the country level that underpins each of these areas
of actions is intimately linked to good governance and the need to develop and
nurture institutions that ate accountable, flexible and responsive to needs of
the poor.
However, there have been arguments
among scholars and policy analyst alike that Nigeria as a country need to
follow some supporting initiatives that help empowers people living in poverty.
Targeting more especially women, and promoting their capacities to enable them
to improve their access to and better utilize available opportunities, basic
social and other types of services, as well as productive resources.
Others also advocated building on
successful policy reforms and continuing efforts toward sound economic
management with a view to attaining levels of economic growth necessary for
reaching the objectives of the programme of action, including through focusing
efforts in the areas of fiscal and financial sector reform and promotion of
microcredit, promoting an equitable distribution of the benefits of growth and
development in favor of the poor and improving their access to basic social
services with a view to increasing their opportunities for participation in
economic activity. Promoting the efficiency the markets within an effective
institutional, regulatory, supervisory and legal setting, while improving
linkages between different economic activities, particularly between
agriculture and micro and small enterprises, and integrating sectorial reforms
within broader development objectives were also submitted.
1.2 STATEMENT OF PROBLEM
Human development is much more than
more the rise or fall of national incomes it is about creating an environment
in which people can develop their full potential and lead productive, creative
lives in accord with their needs and interests. Human development challenges
remain large in the new millennium “Development is about expanding the choices
people have to have lead lives that they value”.
The post independent Nigeria has been
overtaken and engulfed with several development problems. Among these seemingly
insurmountable backlashes comes the contagious issue of poverty. The welfare
outcomes of decentralized federal government programs such as operation feed
the nation, Green Revolution, Directorate of Food, Roads and Rural Infrastructure
(DFRRI) aiming to reduce poverty nationally will depend on the reactions of the
poor masses on which these programmes were meant for.
To know what helps to alleviate
poverty, what works and what does not, what changes over time, poverty has to
be defined, measured and studied and even lived. As poverty has many
dimensions, it has to be looked at through a variety of indicators – levels of
income and consumption, social indicators, and now increasingly indicators of
vulnerability to risks and of socio/political access. Everyone has a stake in
working more effectively, with greater scope, to reduce poverty in Nigeria.
1.3 AIM OF THE STUDY
Recent research and development
experiences suggest that sufficiently high and sustained growth is a
prerequisite for meaningful, hopefully irreversible, and impact on poverty.
Substantial and lasting reductions, if
not complete eradication, of poverty has been and will continue to be the
ultimate goal of economic and social development. The achievement of goal has;
however, so far eluded virtually Nigeria as well as many other countries in the
rest of the developing world. Accordingly to borrow a leaf from the result of
the World Bank study of “Poverty in Nigeria” where a highlight was initiated on
the viability of any successful policy to improve welfare and ameliorate
poverty in Nigeria involving all stakeholders, must include three simultaneous
courses of action:
i.
A strong and focused emphasis on
economic growth
ii.
Better access for the poor to social
services and adequate infrastructure
iii.
Target interventions’ to protect the
poorest or the most vulnerable.
Having
enumerated this standpoint, the aim of this study is to proffer analysis of
these pro-poor policies and its viability towards alleviation of poverty in
Nigeria.
1.4 RESEARCH HYPOTHESIS
As
a guide in carrying out this research, I will thinker on the following
hypothesis.
i.
How has welfare changed and why
ii.
Are the changes sustainable
iii.
Is welfare affected by policy
iv.
Is the new policy reducing poverty
1.5 METHODOLOGY
With a view provide a detailed and
analytical data on this phenomenon of poverty, I will avail myself with the
following method. This will give room for the usage of set data collated for
analytical purposes, as it will not rely exclusively on any particular
technique of analysis but will apply any appropriate technique accordingly.
Thus, it will involve:
Library Research and
Internet Research
Here,
we will study and review past theoretical and empirical studies by other
authors and researchers as to sharpen our focus for the study, details of which
will be presented in chapter two and four.
Data Collection
This
has to do with going to the field to sources for relevant data. In addition to
primary sources such as Observation, Oral Interviews and Records and Report
Techniques, secondary data which includes: published data from the Central Bank
of Nigeria (CBN), World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Journals, Magazine,
Newspaper articles, Seminar and Conference papers, Publications, Monographs,
Textbooks, Working Papers of Institute, Discussion Papers and others relevant
to the area, will also use.
1.6 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
In so far as it is very important to
identify the analytical framework in which this research work is based. This is
bearing in mind that a theory, especially one that is comprehensive, will not
only embrace all areas of the subject, but will be capable of explaining every
phenomenon in the field. If that is so, our theory must satisfactorily explain
every stage development of poverty has so far passed through and every project
that succeeded. In fact, a theory must be able to explain every failure so far.
In that case, it will be a tool in the hands of the Nigerian government, for
national planning.
Based on this standpoint, political
economy approach as was enunciated by Claude Ake 1981 will be the basic
framework for this research. Ake sees political economy as a science that deals
with how society produces goods and services to meet its material needs and how
it has been distributed as well as the method of relationship that exists
amongst the producers of such goods. On the other hand, he insists that less
developed countries of which Nigeria is one are not primary responsible for
their own underdevelopment, Rather their backwardness is the by-product of
exploitation by the developed capitalist world. Nigeria’s colonial experience
and its integration into the already or overblown capitalist economies of its
colonial masters can be attributed to be the main cause of its present state of
poverty.
1.7 SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS OF THE
STUDY
Despite the fact that the prevalence
of Nigeria poverty seems to have defied all government policies towards its
eradication since the first years of independence, this work will concentrate
on previous as well as current policy framework already put in place by various
and successive governments in alleviating the prevalence of poverty in Nigeria.
I will rely on secondary (data)
sources as major source of information for this work. Hence the work may not be
free from the problem of inadequacies and inconsistencies generally associated
with data in Nigeria. Also, the problem of time and finance is eminent. These
constraints will to some extent necessitate the limited scope of the work.
However, it is hoped that, despite these constraints, the result of this study
will be relevant and serve the purpose for which it is intended.
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