MOBILIZING THE RURAL POOR IN NIGERIA THROUGH MICROFINANCE
MOBILIZING THE RURAL POOR IN NIGERIA THROUGH MICROFINANCE

Summary/Abstract: It has been estimated that 80% of Nigerians live in the rural areas while 75% of the producers in most African countries, Nigeria inclusive, operate in the informal sector of the economy and that this sector is the subdominant sector for the majority of the population. What is not often said is that 15% out of the 20% estimated urban inhabitants are rural Nigerians who reside in the urban centres, but belong to the rural areas. Therefore, it sounds logical to state that Nigeria is a rural nation and that whatever should constitute real development is the development of the rural areas. In order to enhance the flow of financial services to this active sector, the Nigerian rural poor, Government has, in the past initiated a series of publicly-financed micro/rural credit programmes and policies targeted at the poor. The growing awareness of the importance of microfinance in the mobilization of the rural poor for economic growth and development as well as poverty reduction has effectively put this issue of microfinance on the politico-economic agenda of most developing countries. Microfinance is strategic to one of the hallmarks of the National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (NEEDS) which is the empowerment of the poor and the private sector, through the provision of needed financial services, to enable them engage or expand their present scope of economic activities, productive capacities or possibility frontiers and generate employment. This paper is divided into five main parts. Following from the introduction, the second part deals with the theories and models related to rural poverty and poverty alleviation while section three x-rays poverty in Nigeria. Section four deals with the concept of microfinance and its place in mobilizing the rural poor while the final part is a conclusion of the paper.

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