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The Effect Of Public Policy Implementation On Community Development In Nigeria
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CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the Study:
Public policies in Africa have been formulated and implemented over the years with the help of International organizations such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Some have also been formulated single handedly by African political leaders aim at achieving radical and rapid improvement in the conditions of life after many years of colonial rule (Ozumba, 2014). However, most of these policies are beclouded with politics and implementation bottlenecks. The politicization of public policies in Africa has led to the formulation of overambitious policies by political parties to win political capital coupled with excessive bureaucratic procedures. An example is Nigeria’s “free education for all†policy which couldn’t establish a strong public education system but rather got many choosing private education as a better alternative (Makinde, 2005).
Nigeria has been an independent nation for the past 54 years with policies on development of rural communities, but rural areas are still not developed and the quality of life of people in the rural areas continues to deteriorate throughout all tiers of government of both politicians and the military regimes.
Diso (2005) added that Nigerian people are still dominantly peasant farmers, petty traders, middle men or commission agents. The country has the potentials to develop all sectors of human endeavour more especially if public policies are fully implemented in the rural communities throughout the country. The rural communities in Nigeria are the majority in terms of population yet, the neglect and sufferings they are encountering presently form the bases for impediment to policy implementation.
The need to bring rural communities to mainstream of contributing meaningfully to the social, cultural and economic development of Nigeria requires an overwhelming priority to be accorded to its policy implementation. As Larson cites in Emeh et al (2012) posits that a policy or programme is a way of dealing with public problems, a sort of concrete socio-economic action or a response to weakness and inability of private sector to supply necessary goods and services or a response to a missing link within the norms of the society .It gives direction to action and activities. In order words, policy refers to a verbal, written or implied overall guide setting up boundaries that supply the general units’ direction in which administrative or managerial action will take.
There is an urgent demand to strengthen and encourage effective and adequate implementation of policies for community development programmes. This will help to stem the challenges of community development which have been of great concern to the different tiers of government in Nigeria -urban migration. The focus of various policies of rural development programme in Nigeria is meant to improve the living conditions in the rural areas with a view to curbing the streaming rural-urban migration.
CHAPTER ONE -- [Total Page(s) 3]
Page 1 of 3
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