Infrastructure Provision and Level of Socio-Economic Development in Rural Settlements of Niger State, Nigeria.

Abstract

This study assesses the relationship between infrastructure provision and level of socio-economic development in rural settlements of Niger state of Nigeria. To achieve this aim, twenty- two (22) rural settlements were randomly selected. In all, a total of 1,792 rural dwellers were selected for the study. Multiple regression analysis was used to determine the relationship between infrastructure provision and socio-economic development. For this study, the dependent variable Y (socio-economic development) is represented by road density while the independent variables are X1 (Institutional variables); X2 (Households infrastructure); X3 (Welfare infrastructure) and X (Accessibility factors). The result of multiple regression revealed that four factors were found to be significant in determining the level of socio-economic development in the selected twenty- two (22) settlements. These factors in order of importance were institutional infrastructure (71%), Households’ infrastructure (20%), Accessibility factors (3.4) and welfare infrastructure (0.1%). All these were found to have explained 94.5% level of socio-economic development in the study area. The study recommends increase in the level of participation of rural communities in development projects that have direct bearing on the welfare of rural populace. The rural communities should be involved right from the needs assessment stage, priority need identification, project implementation as well as monitoring and evaluation.

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