An Assessment of the Strategies for Sustaining Self Help Group Projects in Paikoro Area Niger State, Nigeria

Abstract

Self-help groups (SHGs) have been seriously viewed in recent times as one of the potent instruments for socio-economic development in rural communities having realized that governments cannot provide all the necessities of life for the teeming population in the country. It is in this regard that rural people evolved this strategy as a means to overcome deprivation and neglect. The study aimed at assessing various projects executed by self help groups in Paikoro local government area of Niger State, Nigeria. This study used field survey, and focus group discussion. It adopted a systematic sampling to select 35 self help groups  and purposive sampling technique to select 4 group leaders to make 140 samples on the one hand, 316 samples were generated among the members of the communities through cluster sampling within the neighbourhoods to select key informants in wards where self-help group projects have been executed. The study adopted descriptive statistics such as mean, frequency, averages and percentages to analyse the data. The study identified 105 self-help groups within five districts Paiko having 37(35.2%) as the highest and Ishau has the lowest with 13(12.3%). Projects include roads, clinic, boreholes, electrification, skill acquisition centres, schools, and community toilets. With resource mobilization, some 52(37.2%) are donated by members, 34(24.3%) from stakeholders, 38(27.1) through launching of funds, and 13(9.3%) from various levies. Regarding sustainability of group projects, majority 118(84.3%) opined that involvement of community members would help to maintain the projects and some 9(6.4) admitted that provision of adequate security was necessary. It is recommended that active community participation in self help projects should be encouraged since the people treat such projects as their own. Also, distributive justice should be paramount to location of projects such that there should be no discrimination either by tribe, religion or political affiliation. Moreover, government should give grants and technical assistance to communities that embark upon laudable self-help projects.

Keywords: District Self Help Group Project Sustenance