EFFECT OF COMMUNITY AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS ON SOCIO – ECONOMIC DEVELOPEMENT IN SOUTH WEST, NIGERIA

Abstract

The study assessed the effect of Community and Social Development Projects (CSDP) on Socio – Economic Development (SED) in some selected communities in South West, Nigeria. The study specifically assessed the extent of CSDP implementation objectives, factors influencing the socio – economic development of community members, level of community participation (initiation, planning, execution, monitoring and evaluation), the mediation effect of community participation on CSDP and SED, CSDP deliverables and resultant effect on the socio – development of community members in the selected communities in South West Nigeria. The study covered Ekiti, Ondo and Osun States in South West, Nigeria. The study was conducted among 632 community members and 74 Community and Social Development Agency (CSDA) members of staff sampled in the communities in South West, Nigeria. A multi – stage sampling technique was used to select the respondents. The research tools used were questionnaire and personal observations. Data collected were analysed using both descriptive and inferential statistical tools – Logistic Regression, Simple Linear Regression, Analysis of Variance and Multivariate Analysis of Variance of SPSS Version 26 and Structural Equation Modelling of AMOS Version 26. The study revealed that the level of CSDP implementation objectives through the evaluation criteria of Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA) was considerably high with mean score of 3.63, effectiveness has the highest mean 3.81 and as affirmed by DANIDA. The constructed structural equation model showed that all the CSDP deliverables have significant effect on SED with regression weights in education (β1 = .81), health (β2 = .79), quality of life (β3 = .88), employment (β4 = .98), poverty reduction (β5 =. 88) and income generation (β6 = .91). This implies that SED of community members increases as the rate of CSDP deliverable viincreases and vice – versa. The Ordinary Least Square regression analysis indicated a significant outcome of community participation on CSDP (F = 59.326, P < 0.05). Project initiation (β1 = .525, P < 0.05), planning (β2 = .243, P < 0.05), execution (β3 = .276, P < 0.05) all have significant effect on CSDP implementation while monitoring/ evaluation (β4 = .047, P > 0.05) was not significant. A one – way MANOVA test revealed a significant effect of CSDP deliverables on all the SED indicators, Wilk’s λ = .409, F = 4.888, P < 0.001, Partial eta square = .138. The study also showed the variation of SED indicators as explained through CSDP deliverables with education, employment, income generation accounted for R2 = .250 respectively, health R2 = .305, poverty generation R2 = .300 and quality of life R2 = .208. The study showed that community participation significantly mediate and has both direct and indirect effect on the relationship between CSDP and SED. The direct effect between community participation and CSDP implementation has an estimate of .805, P < 0.01, between SED and CSDP implementation has .276, P < .049, between SED and community participation has .008, P < 0.05. The indirect relationship between SED and CSDP implementation has an estimate of .217, P< 0.05. The study concluded that there is the need for concerted effort towards strengthening CSDP implementation as a developmental project, as it is realised that it could now be a better strategy to transform community people in terms of socio – economic development.