ROLE OF COMMUNITY BASED ORGANIZATIONS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF RURAL COMMUNITIES IN DELTA STATE
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND INFORMATION
The history and importance of community based organization (CBO) in rural areas is a long one. They have been deeply involved in activities that have impacted on the livelihood of rural people. CBOs are formal voluntary social group that are found in communities which dier in size objective and degree of
interaction among members. In these organizations, members have the ability to influence ideas and actions of others with the purpose to plan, implement and monitor social and economic development programmes and provide technical and financial helps to the communities. CBOs positively aect the
process of rural change though increase in income, improvement of health, nutrition literacy of the people. Some of the developmental programmes they introduce bring changes in the rural communities such as health, education, micro finance, micro enterprise, sustainable agriculture, animal husbandry, safe water and sanitation (Wahab, 2000).
Agboola (1998) noted that successive Nigerian Government have responded to both rural and urban problems by evolving poverty alleviation programmes to help stir development but government top-down approach and lack of involvement of the people at he bottom up strategy have weakened the confidence of
the people. Communities therefore seek solace in CBOs which pressurize government for attention to development problems in their communities and/or undertake development programmes and projects that they observe that are very much needed in their immediate communities.
The CBOs are associated with self-help (Ogundipe, 2003). They constitute the media for resource mobilization to confront local challenges. These include the finance and execution of projects, lobbying and nomination of representative to government voices to air their views and press their needs and developing
human resources against future development needs of immediate communities. Thus, their impacts have been felt in the areas of agricultural development, economic development, policy matters, health, education, policy matters, health education, infrastructure, environmental and physical development among others. (Agboola, 1998).
Despite these accomplishments, many CBOs have risen and fallen like old empires, while some have had no significant impact since their establishment due to poor funding. This is so because CBOs in African’s communities are micro system within the macro environment that is afflicted by economic regression,
low standard of living and poverty. There is therefore the need to appraise the socio economic status of existing CBOs in the communities of developing nations like Nigeria and identifying the degree of impact they have exerted on their physical or immediate environment.
