PARTICIPATION OF RURAL WOMEN IN COMMUNITY AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT PROJECT AND ITS CONTRIBUTIONS TO THEIR LIVELIHOOD IN KOGI STATE, NIGERIA

PARTICIPATION OF RURAL WOMEN IN COMMUNITY AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT PROJECT AND ITS CONTRIBUTIONS TO THEIR LIVELIHOOD IN KOGI STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract:

The main objective of this study was to determine the level of participation of rural women in Community and Social Development Project (CSDP), a Community Driven Development Project in Kogi State, Nigeria. Purposive sampling technique was used to select eight communities from four Local Government Areas of the State, while simple random sampling technique was used to select the 320 respondents. In all, three hundred and twenty (320) copies of the questionnaire were distributed through personal visit but only three hundred and thirteen (313) copies were returned. Descriptive statistic, Double difference (DD) estimator in regression framework and maximum likelihood (ML) double hurdle model were used to analyze the data. The socio-economic characteristics of the rural women revealed that the average age of the participants was 43 years while the non-participants was 42 years old on average, 28% and 24% of the participants had secondary and primary level of education respectively. About 81% of the participants were married, had average household size of 7 members. About64% and 54% of the participants and the non-participants were engaged in other activities apart from farming, while 33% of participants were engaged in Farming as main occupation. Medium level of participation in CSDP of about 7 stages with a standard deviation of 6 stages was observed. The first hurdle of the Craggit model showed that household size, urban exposure and farming were significant at 10%, while social participation was significant at 1% level of probability respectively. The second showed that urban exposure, time and leadership position were significant at 1% while social participation and secondary education were significant at 5% levels of probability respectively. Participation in CSDP was found to have impacted positively on the livelihood of the participants by increasing significantly their productive assets by N26, 056.41. Twelve other benefits were derived from the project among which the three most distributed ones were reduction in water borne disease, reduction in time spent in household chores and reduction in time spent in fetching water. The least distributed benefits however were employment at health facility and employment at school facility. In terms of constraints to participation, nine important constraints were reported among which the three most important were lack of time due to household chores, financial constraints, and low level of education. The two least challenging constraints faced by the women who participated in CSDP were discrimination due to marital status and religious barrier. Based on these findings, it was recommended that to increase rural women participation in community driven development projects, policies and legal framework that will increase the level of secondary education for rural women be put in place by legislators and Government; development agencies, Ministries, departments and agencies of Government should increase advocacy and sensitization to encourage rural women participation in social meetings and finally build capacity of rural women in the area of time management and occupying quality leadership positions.

PARTICIPATION OF RURAL WOMEN IN COMMUNITY AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT PROJECT AND ITS CONTRIBUTIONS TO THEIR LIVELIHOOD IN KOGI STATE, NIGERIA