Role of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in Rural Development : A Study of the Six Listed NGOs in Rivers State, Nigeria

Role of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in rural development was analyzed through a study conducted on six NGOs in Rivers State. Major rural development programmes of the NGOs are agricultural programmes, health programmes, human resource development programmes, community development and industrial and trade programmes. Majority of the beneficiaries, non-beneficiaries, workers of NGOs and workers of other development agencies considered rural development works of the NGOs as effective for rural development. The objectives of the study are firstly, to analyze the role of NGOs in promoting sustainable agriculture. Secondly, to find on what extent NGOs are promoting awareness programmes and upgrading development facilities. For the present study, a few NGOs have been selected randomly for detailed investigation and relevant information was collected by personal visits. Some NGOs had involved successfully with organic farming system. But in this study, 6 NGOs were selected from Rivers State, Nigeria. The overall analysis of the study reveals that NGOs are very prominent in effective implementation of government programmes towards sustainable rural development through the third party activities in education, health, agriculture, community development, energy, environment, and waste, moral up bringing, youth empowerment and poverty alleviation