Rural Infrastructure and Sustainable Development in Nigeria

This study examined rural infrastructure and sustainable development in Nigeria. Specifically, the study ascertained the extent to which poverty alleviation, basic education, rural electrification, corruption, primary healthcare, and road networking have influenced sustainable development of the rural areas in Nigeria using an econometric regression model of the ordinary least square after conducting some preliminary tests like the stationarity of the variables using the ADF Statistic and Johansen Cointegration Test. From the result of the OLS, the study revealed that poverty alleviation, basic education, rural electrification, primary healthcare, and road network have a positive impact on sustainable development in Nigeria. With the exception of road networking that was not statistically insignificant, all the other variables of the study were statistically significant in explaining sustainable development in Nigeria. The study recommends that The federal government should increase its monetary budget on education for the purpose of procuring educational materials, equipments, conducive environment for both staffs and students and also provide skill acquisition equipment for human capital development which will also lead to self employment. The government at all levels should formulate policies that aims at eliminating those negative externalities that are responsible for natural resource depletion and environmental degradation which undermines sustainable development in Nigeria. Government should also step up a well supervised expenditure on basic infrastructures, poverty alleviation, basic education, rural electrification, fight against corruption, primary healthcare, and road networking. This is because they have been found to influence productivity of the rural dwellers and also affect sustainable development. Okoli, Ikechukwu Moses | Okonkwo Somtochukwu Mary | Michael, Maureen Chinenye "Rural Infrastructure and Sustainable Development in Nigeria" Published in International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (ijtsrd), ISSN: 2456-6470, Volume-4 | Issue-4 , June 2020, URL: https://www.ijtsrd.com/papers/ijtsrd30943.pdf Paper Url :https://www.ijtsrd.com/humanities-and-the-arts/economics/30943/rural-infrastructure-and-sustainable-development-in-nigeria/okoli-ikechukwu-moses