Eneji Chris-Valentine Ogar, 2Obim Edim, 1Udumo, Bassey Obeten
The problem of most rural communities in meeting the millennium development goals is financing their development projects with minimal community stress and fear. This is so because, the rural poor have virtually very few economic investment endeavor and they hardly have enough reserve or savings to invest in such projects with huge financial weight, hence they need external funding to enable them carry out such project since an individual in the community can hardly raise such monies for their development programs. This research made use of the survey inferential design; both quantitative and qualitative research design was adopted for the study. The instrument for data collection was a well structured questionnaire, using the step-wise sampling technique, a sample of 315 respondents were selected from a population of 1573. Spearman rho correlation and simple percentage were used for data analysis. The result of the Spearman rho correlation analysis shows a very positive correlation between micro-credit facilities and the meeting of the millennium development goals within the rural communities of cross river state. Most micro-credit facilities is given to people with commensurate collaterals, while in few instances, the credit facility is given to people without commensurate collaterals but with proper guarantors who must be male with landed properties. This assertion that a guarantor must be a male with landed property is against the MDG goal 4 which seek to promote gender equality and women empowerment. It is however observe that micro-credit facilities could help in this regards, but it is sad to note that most financial institutions where these micro-credit facilities could have been sourced have made it very difficult that getting such loans become near impossible and where possible, it is gender biased and the interests on such loan is whopping and discouraging. Appropriate recommendations were then made to solve the problems of difficulty in sourcing microcredit facilities.
Share this article