Micro Finance and Property Alleviation in Nigeria

Micro Finance and Property Alleviation in Nigeria

ABSTRACT

Poverty has such an adverse effect that those under it remain trapped in a vicious circle because access to basic necessities of life is lacking or inadequate.

The antipoverty programmes of the federal government were targeted at the rural and urban poor with emphasis on women and unemployed youth.

The intervention took the form of the provision of basic infrastructures to facilitate rural development as well as provision of credit facilities to improve the lot of the underprivileged by encouraging micro-enterprises in the cities and training programmes for the unemployed youths.

This was done because it was realized that Structural Adjustment policies did not achieve steady economic growth and poverty has become more acute as evident among the rural and urban dwellers.

The objective of this study was to examine the impact of microfinance banks on poverty alleviation using the Ahmadu Bello University microfinance bank as case study. Both primary and secondary data were collected and used. Also, descriptive statistics were used.

The results showed that microfinance banks enhanced rural and urban development; there was improved savings mobilization which improved credit facilities which in turn improved the lot of the rural and urban dwellers by the larger output from micro-enterprises.

INTRODUCTION

Poverty is defined in many ways by a number of rural and urban characteristics. It is strongly influenced by education, age, the nature of employment and level of income among others. The level of income has been used to construct poverty line.

This is the value of income necessary to purchase the minimum standard of nutrition and other necessities of life.

In Nigeria, the poverty line (at 1985 prices) of N395 per person per month and the extreme poverty line of N198 per person per month is used to designate the poor and extremely poor respectively (World Bank Report, 1996).

In Nigeria, those without education account for most of the poor. According to the World Bank Report, about 79% of the urban extreme poor and 95% of the rural poor had only primary education or less.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ahmadu Bello University, Microfinance Bank 2009.

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