ACCESS TO INFORMATION: THE DILEMMA FOR RURAL COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA. By Manir Abdullahi Kamba Department of Library and Information Science Bayero University Kano. Nigeria manirung@yahoo.com Abstract The provision of information services in Africa has been dispersed and access to various information services has become more difficult; the principal victims of these developments have been rural people without having any individual means of becoming literate, due to them being too illiterate, too young, too old, too poor or too ill because of the economic and information poverty. The paper will provide a highlight on the value and usefulness of information as it affects rural community development and the need for it to be managed effectively. The premise of the paper is that promoting the role of information through the establishment of innovative community information centre (ICIC) will strengthen and empower the rural people to be among global players in the knowledge-based economy and also it will provide the opportunities for rural community development in general. This entails that the development of any rural community is a positive indicator for the development of a nation. Finally the paper provides a framework for which library and information services can be sustain to foster rural community development by making information as influential factor, which serves as an agent of social, educational, economic and political development. Introduction Rural communities in Africa constitutes the larger percentage of the population whose information and developmental needs are not adequately met and consequently they have not been able to productively participate in the development process and enjoy the benefits thereof (Chester, & Neelameghan, 2006). Equity and justice requires that any programme for socio-economic development, whether general or in a specific sector, should cover and benefit all sections of the society, irrespective of race, caste, colour, religion, culture and other social, economic or political differences. For long, history has shown that rural communities’ in Africa has suffered from enjoying any meaningful development largely because of policy implementation gap artificially created by the African governments and leaders. The consequence of these neglect resulted in rural communities lacking access to basic needs such as water, food, education, health care, sanitation, information and security, leading to low life expectancy and high infant mortality. These conditions, considered harsh by the majority of the rural dwellers, which result their massive migration into urban areas to look for greener pasture, and often in search of formal employment, as the only option for survival. Moreover, literacy is quite low amongst the general populace