THE ROLE OF INTERNATIONAL NGO’S IN D ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF NIGERIA A CASE STUDY OF BILL N MILAN DA GATES FOUNDATION

Abstract

There is an increasing desire for the development of rural areas in Nigeria because of its strategic importance. Successive governments have made strategic  efforts aimed towards the development of the rural areas. Such efforts include the operation feed the Nation progreamme; the River basin and Rural Development Authorities; Directorate of food, road and Rural Infrastructure; Better life for Rural Women; the family support programme; family Economic Advancement Programme; and the National Directorate of Employment. Unfortunately, all the efforts made by successive administrations have not achieved desired goal. In recent times, non-governmental organizations have participated in rural development to compliment the efforts of government. Some of their contributions include human capital development and technical assistance; Development of Small Scale farmers; Research, monitoring and evaluation; Enlightenment Campaigns; Advocacy for the poor; and conflict resolution/peace building. However, the non-governmental organizations have some challenges which have limited their performances and also impeded their growth.

 

 

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

• Background of the study

The concept of ‘capacity development’ has gradually become the centre of attention in the development discourse over the past few years, and it constitutes an increasingly important strategy in development today, within the education sector which is the brain child of national development. In education planning and management, capacity development implies a focus on the existing capacities of governments and how these capacities can become strengthened on all levels of individual, the organizational and the institutional, as well as the broader system context. Governments, donor agencies and international organizations involved in development are increasingly putting an emphasis on capacities as key to sustainable development in general and in reaching the Education for All (EFA) goals in particular. Equally, capacity development implies assisting governments in becoming responsible and legitimate actors, willing to assume ownership of their proper development processes. In reality, this is yet to be the case, precisely because the state in many countries does not yet play its developmental role fully. In public sectors such as health and education, development non-government organizations (NGOs) have been occupying the role of main service providers over the past few years. Often replacing the role of the government on the ground, especially in remote rural areas, NGOs have traditionally assumed a gap-filling role that has sometimes created conflicting relations with governments.  In Nigeria, bill n Milan da gates foundation work with government, the private sector, and civil society to help people lift themselves out of poverty. As they want to see children, mothers and farmers, in particular, given the opportunities to lead healthy and productive lives. With over 100 grants, the foundation works in Nigeria to achieve six main goals: Eradicate polio; the foundation work at the international level with the World Health Organization and UNICEF, as well as at the country level, with the National Primary Health Care Development Agency and state governments, to ensure regular vaccinations and immunizations.

Improve family health; it is often said that “health is wealth” that is why the foundation aim to reduce preventable deaths by focusing on maternal and child health; investing in programs that provide prenatal through postnatal care, as well as childhood immunizationprograms. We also address common healthcare challenges, including pneumonia, diarrheal diseases, and neglected tropical diseases, as well as access to clean water and proper sanitation and hygiene.

Strengthen healthcare systems; the foundation has invested heavily in the primary healthcare and look for ways to integrate healthcare services to ensure a strong system for Nigeria’s people.

Improve nutrition; We partner with the Dangote Foundation and others to address severe malnutrition and improve overall childhood nutrition. Increase agricultural productivity; We help smallholder farmers increase the yield of important crops such as yams, cassava, sorghum, cowpeas, and rice, as well as the productivity of their livestock. We do this by providing farmers with better tools, seeds, and systems, and also by supporting research and policies that help improve the lives of smallholder farmers over the long term.

Enhance access to financial services. Our programs support the government’s aims to ensure that women, smallholder farmers, and other marginalized populations have access to the country’s financial system, which can help them save, spend, and plan for the future more effectively.

In this context, their strategies and activities are of interest in so far as they have an impact on governmental capacity development in the health sector. Indeed, while the continuation of their gap-filling role depends on the government’s lack of capacity, NGOs increasingly demand that governmental priorities change by paying more attention to those people who have not yet been reached. They act therefore as innovators, critics, advocates and policy partners. The capacity development (CD) concept and the need to focus on strengthening government capacity provides this NGOs with new challenges. The possible contradictions between capacity development as a developmental paradigm and NGOs’ role as gap fillers correspond to the tensions between the new and the traditional roles of NGOs. This raises two related issues: what impact does NGO action have on governments’ capacities? Also, how do NGOs interpret the national development concept? Our focus in this research will be on NGOs’ action in national development with emphasis on education. Their work in this sector has occupied a more prominent place in the development discourse since the 1990s, especially as it became obvious that in many countries the provision of basic social services was not being assured by the public sector. Today, education is considered to be crucial in the process of poverty eradication and economic development. One of the reasons for this renewed interest in education is that it “straddles both equity and productivity conceptualizations of development” (Baker, 2007: 9). In other words, the importance of education is a common denominator for the various and sometimes competing approaches to development, and accordingly, gains support from most actors involved in the development enterprise – governments, aid agencies, multilateral organizations and NGOs.

The problem of national development in Nigeria have been of great concern to the different tiers of government due to the alarming rate of rural-urban migration. According to Onibokum (1987), rural development is faced with the paradox that the development oriented rural economy relies heavily on non-productive people who are ill-equipped with outdated tools, lack technical information, lack scientific and cultural training, and whose traditional roles and access to resources pose problems for their effective incorporation into modern economic system. There is an overwhelming need to accord rural development a priority so as to enable them contribute meaningfully to the socio-cultural and socio-economic development of Nigeria. The bulk of Nigeria’s wealth is derived from agriculture and oil which lies in abundant quantity in rural communities. Currently, over 80% of the entire population live in the rural area, but much has not been done in terms of social amenities and infrastructural facilities. The neglect of the rural areas has not only resulted to the mass exodus of rural dwellers to the urban centres, but has also made the rural areas less attractive for socio-economic investment. Ariyo (1991) asserts that the massive rural-urban drift of able-bodied young men and women led to declining productivity in agriculture, increasing food imports, growing unemployment and the widening gap in welfare terms between the urban and rural areas.

• STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

An organization is a collection of people working in a coordinated manner to achieve a common purpose. There are many types of organizations, which may be classified as either for-profit or not-for-profit (nonprofit), large or small. Non-Governmental organizations are organizations that operate across national boundaries, that have membership composed of private individuals, and that do not answer to any government. bill n Milan da gates foundation have been a tool of change and national development across the globe. The objective of this NGO is to offer humanitarian services to communities, state, local government and the nation at large. It is on this backdrop that the researcher intends to investigate the role of bill n Milan da gates foundation in national development in national development in Nigeria.

• OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY

The main objective of this study is to investigate the role of international NGOs in national developments. But for the successful completion of this study, the researcher intend to achieve the following sub-objective

1. To investigate the role of bill n Milan da gates foundation in national developments
2. To ascertain the impact of NGOs in poverty reduction

• To ascertain the role of the bill n Milan da gates foundation in the development of the health sector

1. To ascertain the impact of the NGOs in reducing rural-urban migration
   • RESEARCH HYPOTHESES

For the successful completion of the study, the following hypotheses were formulated:

H₀:  International NGOs does not play any significant role in national development

H₁: International NGOs plays a significant role in national development

H₀: International NGOs does not have any impact on the development of the health sector in Nigeria.

H₂: international NGOs have a significant impact on the development of the health sector in Nigeria.

• SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

It is perceived that at the completion of the study, the findings will be of great importance to international NGOs in Nigeria as the findings will position them for better service delivery

The study will also be of great importance to the indigenous NGOs as the findings will guide them in expanding their frontiers of service delivered to the populace. The findings will also be of great importance to researchers who wishes to embark on a study in similar topic as the findings will serve as a guide to them. Finally the findings will also be of great benefit to lecturers, teachers, academia’s, students and the general public as the study will also add to the existing pool of knowledge.

• SCOPE AND LIMITATION OF THE STUDY

The scope of the study covers the role of international NGOs in national developments with emphasis on bill n Milan da gates foundation. But in the course of the study, the researcher encounters some constrain which limited the scope of the study. Some of these limitations are:

(a)Availability of research material: The research material available to the researcher is insufficient, thereby limiting the study.

(b)Time: The time frame allocated to the study does not enhance wider coverage as the researcher has to combine other academic activities and examinations with the study.

(c)Finance: The finance available for the research work does not allow for wider coverage as resources are very limited as the researcher has other academic bills to cover.

1.7 DEFINITION OF TERMS

NGOs

A non-governmental organization (NGO) is a not-for-profit organization that is independent from states and international governmental organizations. They are usually funded by donations but some avoid formal funding altogether and are run primarily by volunteers. NGOs are highly diverse groups of organizations engaged in a wide range of activities, and take different forms in different parts of the world. Some may have charitable status, while others may be registered for tax exemption based on recognition of social purposes. Others may be fronts for political, religious, or other interests.

National development

National development refers to the ability of a nation to improve the lives of its citizens. Measures of improvement may be material, such as an increase in the gross domestic product, or social, such as literacy rates and availability of healthcare.

Health sector

The healthcare industry (also called the medical industry or health economy) is an aggregation and integration of sectors within the economic system that provides goods and services to treat patients with curative, preventive, rehabilitative, and palliative care

1.8 ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY

This research work is organized in five chapters, for easy understanding, as follows Chapter one is concern with the introduction, which consist of the (overview, of the study), statement of problem, objectives of the study, research question, significance or the study, research methodology, definition of terms and historical background of the study. Chapter two highlight the theoretical framework on which the study its based, thus the review of related literature. Chapter three deals on the research design and methodology adopted in the study. Chapter four concentrate on the data collection and analysis and presentation of finding.  Chapter five gives summary, conclusion, and recommendations made of the study

1.9 BRIEF HISTORY OF BILL AND MILAN DA GATES FOUNDATION.

The story of the world’s largest private foundation begins with a couple reading a news article about suffering in the developing world. The husband clipped the article and sent it to his father, the philanthropist William H Gates, writing: “Dad, maybe we can do something about this.” It was the first step towards the creation of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Since beginning their great philanthropic mission in 1997, the husband and wife team have become a powerful catalyst for the improvement of lives in the world’s poorest countries The foundation’s trust endowment of $43.5bn (£29.5bn) makes grant payments in excess of $3bn every year ($3.9bn in 2014). Its focus has been on bridging the enormous health deficit between rich and poor countries and on fights it sees as vast, but ultimately winnable. Among its goals are the eradication of malaria and polio, and controlling the spread of tuberculosis and HIV.

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Investor Warren Buffet joined the foundation as a trustee in 2006 with a £30bn pledge. In 2008, Bill Gates resigned as chief software architect at Microsoft, the technology company he built, to focus solely on the work of the foundation.

In total, the fund has given $32.9bn in grants to health programmes around the world. Its work focusses on prevention, immunisation and vaccination.

Since the turn of the century, partly thanks to the work of the foundation, four countries have eradicated malaria. Mortality from the disease has dropped 42% in that time. Bill said in 2014 that malaria could be eliminated within a generation.

In 2014, after a massive coordinated effort between the Indian government, the Gates Foundation and Rotary International, India announced it was officially polio-free. The programme employed 2m vaccinators who spread out across the country. Just five years before, India had more than half the world’s polio cases. It was “the greatest global health achievement I have ever witnessed”, said Bill. The foundation now aims to eradicate polio worldwide by 2018.

The foundation has also funded the Guardian’s award-winning Global Development website since 2010.

As well as his work on health through the foundation, Bill has made climate change and clean energy a personal mission. The foundation’s annual letter for 2015 says their achievements could be undone by the advancing climate crisis.

“It is fair to ask whether the progress we’re predicting will be stifled by climate change. The most dramatic problems caused by climate change are more than 15 years away, but the long-term threat is so serious that the world needs to move much more aggressively – right now – to develop energy sources that are cheaper, can deliver on demand, and emit zero carbon dioxide. Bill is investing time in this work personally (not through our foundation) and will continue to speak out about it.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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