Indigenous Communities and Community Development Principles in South-East Nigeria: Challenges and Prospects

Abstract

Indigenous communities have fallen victims of underdevelopment arising from the remote nature of their environment coupled with public/private concentration on the urban areas for meaningful infrastructural and super-structural development. This situation has deprived most of these indigenous communities in Nigeria of unleashing their potentials and maximum utilization of their human and non-human resources for socio-economic development in their environment. This paper is motivated by this scenario to look for ways of improving the course of indigenous communities through optimal use of their unharnessed potentials for socio-economic development. The paper discussed the principles of community development, its challenges and prospects for socio-economic growth and sustenance of indigenous communities in Nigeria. This will function as a catalyst for empowering indigenous communities towards socio-economic and sustainable development.

Keywords: Indigenous communities, community development, principles, challenges and prospects, sustainability.