Research on Humanities and Social Sciences www.iiste.org ISSN 2222-1719 (Paper) ISSN 2222-2863 (Online) Vol.3, No.12, 2013 66 Self-Help Initiatives and the Development of Rural Communities in Nigeria Friday Ebong 1* Judith Otu 2 Fidelis Ogwumike 3 1. Department of Economics, University of Calabar, Calabar, Nigeria 2. Department of Sociology, University of Calabar, Calabar, Nigeria 3. Department of Economics, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria * E-mail of the Corresponding author: frebong@yahoo.co.uk Abstract Self-help initiatives for developing Nigeria’s rural communities are attempts by concerned individuals and groups to bridge the gap between the efforts of governments at overall national development and the near total invisibility of many of these communities. Provided they are demand–driven and environmentally friendly, there are no limits to the range of projects that qualify to be executed in the rural communities through self-help initiatives. The only requirements are institutional capacity and/or the willingness to build one, to support and to manage such projects sustainably. This has to do with the pivotal role of governments in providing the enabling environment and in moderating the forces of culture and ethnicity, as residents of a rural community strive for self-emancipation in order to be able to exert sufficient control over an environment that appears to them as given and unchangeable. Keywords: Self-Help initiatives, Demand-driven, Environmentally-friendly, Institutional capacity, Rural communities. 1. INTRODUCTION Generally, development efforts seek to improve people’s welfare. There is a drive to raise the overall productivity of an economy, to increase available surplus as well as expand its capital base-presumably by forgoing a certain amount of immediate consumption of this surplus in favour of investment. Since men, if left alone will tend to define their self-interests in terms of more and more consumption, the business of development is to attempt to restrain this desire for immediate consumption. The self-help approach seeks to use voluntary grassroots organizations to restrain this desire and to, in a participatory way and outside government budgets, ultimately provide for the people’s basic (food and non-food) needs by mobilizing private resources (Ogwumike, 1998). The self-help strategy connotes a programme of activities involving the concerted efforts of members of a given community aimed at providing some basic amenities in that community. It entails the development of the resources of the community by efforts of members of that community alone, instead of relying on outside initiatives or assistance. It is an inward-looking approach to self or group improvement, which relies solely on own efforts and largely for own benefits (see also Nel and Binns, 1997). To stimulate and sustain the self-help motive in rural development, it is necessary to mobilize and organize people in affected communities for effective project conception, selection and implementation. The self-help strategy therefore presupposes the existence of like-minded people with initiatives, integrity, and foresightedness; apart from capital and a favourable investment environment. It takes peaceful coexistence as given, as well as the existence of a government that is readily responsive to the needs and aspirations of the governed. It also requires cultural traits that are development-friendly. Apart from being an eloquent repudiation of the ‘top-down’ strategies of the 1970s-which tilted economic opportunities largely in favour of urban centres, it is also an attempt by concerned individuals and groups to bridge the gap between government developmental efforts and the near total “invisibility” of most rural areas ( Otite, 1990). Provided they are demand-driven and environmentally friendly there is no limit to the range of projects that can be executed in rural areas through self-help. The only requirements are adequate institutional capacity, and/or willingness to build on, to support and manage the projects and thereafter sustain them. This alludes to the pivotal role of governments in providing the enabling environment and in moderating the forces of culture and ethnicity. The