As Nigerians prepare for the inauguration of a new administration on May 29, 2015, Prof. Raphael Abiodun Olawepo of the Department of Geography and Environmental Management, University of Ilorin, has canvassed a National Development Plan that is devoid of politics but which would highlight national priorities and guarantee continuity.
In the well-attended lecture, entitled “Learning from the People: A Geographer's Mandate for Sustainable Rural Development”, the don said, “We need a national blueprint for our National Development Agenda that is devoid of partisan politics so that no matter which political party wins an election, Nigerians are sure of national priorities that all investors and other stakeholders can pursue.”
The Professor of Settlement Studies and Rural Geography also canvassed that the bulk of rural development programmes be shifted to the Local Government administrations, “since they are closer to the grassroots”.
But, according to him, there has to be proper local government autonomy first “in terms of finances and rural development policies, which should come directly from the Federal Government”.
Prof. Olawepo stressed further that “life in the rural areas should be made attractive and profitable with a view to keeping these people in their homes and surroundings through an improved accessibility to public goods and services”.
The don, who noted that “the main source of the crises in the rural sector is the absence of effective partnership and funding”, called for the establishment of the World Bank Assisted Rural Development Programmes in all states whereby the rural communities would choose programmes or projects for themselves, contribute their ten percent funding while the rest 90% would be borne by the State and Federal Government as counterpart funding..
Prof. Olawepo also recommended that because the nature and dimension of the problems confronting rural development in Nigeria requires a new approach to governance, “Local Governments should be democratised to make rural development more accountable, transparent, efficient and inclusive.”
He said, “The rural people must be brought into all aspects of planning from rural appraisal to budget implementation and community monitoring. This will help them to see rural projects as theirs and as such participatory development would be sustainable”.
On how to enforce rural and urban environmental sustainability, the don suggested that Geography, as a subject, should be made compulsory at the secondary school level, and not be made optional nor replaced with Social Studies in the development of the new school curriculum, as being contemplated. This, according to him, “will enable us all to appreciate our environment early in life and allow proper sustainable deployment”.
Citing an incident during his field trip to Kainti, a national food basket community reputed for production of yam flour but deprived of good roads, Prof Olawepo said, “Kainti's case is one out of thousands of neglected rural areas serving as food baskets for our nation”. He lamented that “many rural areas are without serious attention”, submitting that “they deserve equity too. The profit of the land belongs to us all, the rural and the city people”.
The don further made reference to a web-based, weekly weather forecast service on Agbamu, a rural Igbomina community in Kwara State, which according to him, “has been useful to our people at home and in Lagos to guide their ways and monitor the community's weather at the local level”.
He said, “I am proud to say that with my professional training, I can forecast when the next rain will fall in Agbamu and its environs, the speed of the wind and the temperature range over the next six days; and it is a form of participatory development at the grassroots”.
Prof. Olawepo stressed that apart from his contribution to community service at the local level, he had also rendered services at the State and National levels. For instance, he said, he is “a member of the Federal Government Ministerial Committee that prepared the proposal for the country's bid to host the United Nations Climate Change Centre in 2013, and I irrevocably rendered my expertise and professional input successfully”.
He spoke of the mandate, saying, “having looked at what could constitute an appropriate sustainable rural development and the journey so far in rural development issues in Nigeria, permit me to lay emphasis on the prescribed mandate I am reporting, both to the geographers out there and the entire planning world, the mandate of change that could transform our rural world”.
The don said, “The Geographers' mandate is a three-fold planning strategy that lays emphases on participatory methodologies and other planning options that enhance learning from the rural people, and includes learning and documentation from our work, the experience we obtain from the rural people, using their ideas to plan with them and for them; sharing our learning and field-based experiences through education, training and communicating in a systematic framework so that even villagers receive critical information on development activities they need to begin improving their difficult lives; and, joining with partners in global development collaboration to promote and achieve equity, justice and peace for all beginning from the grassroots”.
Prof. Olawepo added that “in the 21st Century, a rural development programme that would be sustainable would put the people first, and would not be the sole responsibility of our government planning from top to down, but would be guided bottom up approaches, which we find only in the use of participatory methodologies.” He, therefore, called for the use of Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) at all levels of rural development programmes.
No comments:
Post a Comment