Impacts of integrated scheme on livelihood and rural housing condition in Nigeria

Pages128-144
Date24 September 2019
Published date24 September 2019
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1108/WJSTSD-05-2018-0035
AuthorAdedayo Ayodeji Odebode
Subject MatterPublic policy & environmental management,Environmental technology & innovation
Impacts of integrated scheme on
livelihood and rural housing
condition in Nigeria
Adedayo Ayodeji Odebode
Department of Estate Management,
Faculty of Environmental Design and Management,
Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria
Abstract
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of integrated rural development scheme on
livelihood and rural housing condition in selected rural areas in Osun state. This is prompted by the need to
develop effective strategy for improving the rural housing condition in Nigeria.
Design/methodology/approach The impacts of the scheme were measured through survey of
344 participants obtained from 28 active communities out of the 36 communitiescoverage by Rural
Development Programme of Justice Development and Peace Makerss Centre through a multi-stage sampling.
Both qualitative and quantitative data were obtained from the respondents. The data were analyzed through
descriptive statistics, frequency distribution, correlation and regression analysis.
Findings The result revealed that the mode of operation of the integrated scheme is to educate farmerson
best farming practices. The integrated scheme had contributed positively to the livelihood of the respondents
by providing stable source of finance than any other available finance source options, and it increased assets
and skill acquisition and ability to have more combination of livelihood options as a result of the intervention.
In addition, the number of respondents without personal accommodation also decreased at a significant
proportion after the intervention. Also, notable numbers of respondents have increased access to domestic
housing facilities such as, well, pit toilet and electricity. The result of the correlation analysis showed further
that respondents with more livelihood assets and larger household size most often have a better housing
condition, whereas the regression analysis revealed that change in the household size and change in
livelihood assets lead to change in the housing condition. The paper suggest that integrated scheme could be
used as a self-financing strategy for both qualitative and quantitative improvement of rural housing in
Nigeria if the scheme enjoys the requisite government support in terms of adequacy of finance and more
government agency participation for wider coverage.
Originality/value The paper is one of the pioneering studies in Nigeria.
Keywords Impacts, Livelihood, Housing condition, Integrated scheme
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Housing is one of the three mans basic needs, and thus, its importance as indicators to
health, income, status and productivity cannot be overemphasized. Though housing
problem is universal, it is more endemic in Sub-Saharan Africa. Housing problem could
either be qualitative and quantitative in nature. Although the experience in advanced
countries is mostly qualitative, housing challenges in Africa are twofolds. The experience in
most African countries is over-congestion of their cities due to high ruralurban migration
that is an aftermath of complete neglect of rural infrastructural facilities development. This
accounted for inadequate qualitative and quantitative housing in African countries.
World over qualitative and quantitative housing are one of the major facilities that have
proven to improve efficiency and productivity. This is completely lacking in most
Sub-Sahara African countries especially Nigeria. In Nigeria, government has embarked on
several housing policies through First National Development Plan (19621968), Second
National Development Plan (19701974) and Third National Development Plan (19751980)
among others to address housing problem in the country (Olayiwola et al., 2005). A review of
Nigerian government housing policies suggested that it is urban oriented with little or no
World Journal of Science,
Technology and Sustainable
Development
Vol. 17 No. 2, 2020
pp. 128-144
© Emerald PublishingLimited
2042-5945
DOI 10.1108/WJSTSD-05-2018-0035
Received 10 May 2018
Revised 26 February 2019
8 April 2019
19 June 2019
Accepted 11 August 2019
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/2042-5945.htm
128
WJSTSD
17,2
attention given to rural housing (Odebode and Oladokun, 2010). From available literature
such as Omuojine (2000), Olayiwola et al. (2005), cited in Akande (2008), Odebode and
Oladokun (2010) and Ibem (2010) on review of government housing policies, there is neglect
of rural housing by the government housing corporations and private developers in Nigeria.
This assertion is upheld by Udoh and Uyanga (2013) in their study on housing condition
and health in rural Nigeria. The paper suggested that there is need for intervention toward
rural housing to enhance rural dwellers health quality, and hence, increase productivity and
improved well-being. The need for intervention on rural infrastructure especially housing is
also apparent in the study of gender and spatial variation of poverty in selected rural
settlements in Oyo state by Popoola (2012) which opined that there is severe poverty in the
rural areas. Consequently, based on these authorsopinions Gasu et al. (2010), Popoola (2012)
and Udoh and Uyanga (2013), rural dwellers are financially handicapped to provide
qualitative housing for themselves, hence, the relevance of this study.
According to Department for International Development (2015), better domestic
infrastructure such as water, electricity, toilets and housing accommodation are usually core
components of well-being. Similarly, Rahimberdi and Asghar (2011) used availability of
infrastructure as part of the indicators to measure both qualitative and quantitative housing
quality in Iran urban areas. Be that as it may, availability of infrastructure could also be
used to measure rural housing quality.
The components of well-being according to Sule et al. (2013) and Udoh and Uyanga (2013)
are lacking in most rural areas in Nigeria. The availability of these domestic infrastructures
will increase working hours through time saved from domestic work such as hours saved on
time spent to fetch water from long distance, and ability to work longer hours due to
improved health among others.
Studies on need for sustainable housing policy in selected urban fringes and livelihood
improvement in rural areas of Nigeria such as Morse et al. (2009), Yusuf (2010) and Amao
(2014) abound in the literature. However, livelihood improvement studies based on
integrated approach especially on housing condition in Osun state are scanty. As the
opportunity for cost recovery of investment in rural areas is very low, both public and
private investors are not desirous of investing in rural infrastructural development such as
provision of low cost housing, water facilities, roads and electricity that could enhance rural
activities. Countries such as India and Kenya that are having similar challenge of neglect in
the development of rural areas and urban slum areas by public and private sectors have
adopted integrated approach to urban slum upgrading and rural development (Majale,
2004). Having similar challenges in emerging economies such as India and Kenya, it is not
out of place to examine the impact of the existing integrated scheme in Nigeria. As a result,
the studys focus is to examine improvement on rural livelihood and housing condition
through an existing integrated scheme initiated by Rural Development Programme
(RUDEP) Unit of Justice Development and Peace MakersCentre ( JDPMC), Catholic Diocese
of Osogbo, Osun state, Nigeria in selected rural communities in the state. The JDPMC
integrated scheme is initiated to improve livelihood of poorer famers in the study area.
Integrated housing scheme is a holistic approach to poverty reduction through
integrating income generating activities and housing improvement in the livelihood
programmes of the partner groups in a project. The remaining part of the paper is
structured as follows: following the background is the review of past studies. The research
method is discussed in Section 3, whereas the discussions of findings and conclusions are
contained in Sections 4 and 5, respectively.
2. Review of past studies
Tonts et al. (2001) opined that economic development of rural areas is contingent upon the
availability of good quality and affordable housing stock. Therefore, rural housing is an
129
Impacts of
integrated
scheme on
livelihood

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