Influence of Youth Participation on Sustainability of Community Development Projects in Ogba/Ebgema/Ndoni Local Government Area and Ahoada East Local Government Area in Rivers State, Nigeria

Abstract:

This study examined influence of youth participation on sustainability of community development projects in Ogba/Ebgema/Ndoni and Ahoada East Local Government Areas in Rivers State. Three specific purposes, three research questions and three hypotheses guided the study. Descriptive survey research design with population of 1,476 youth was adopted for the study. Sample size of 311 youth drawn using stratified proportional sampling technique and consisting of 166 youth from Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni local government area and 145 from Ahoada East local government area were used for the study. Self-structured questionnaire titled “Perceived Influence of Youth Participation on Sustainability of Community Development Projects Questionnaires (PIYOPSCDPQ)” was used for the study and subjected to test retest reliability. The relationship between the two tests was done using Pearson Product Moment Correlation (PPMC) to obtain r value of 0.76. Data collected for the study were analysed using mean to answer the research questions and independent t-test to test the hypotheses formulated with the aid of SPSS version 20.0. The results show that youths from ONELGA and Ahoada East opined that to a very high extent their involvement in planning projects enhances sustainability of community development projects. The results also showed that youths from ONELGA and Ahoada East opined that to a low extent their involvement in needs identification and executing projects enhances sustainability of community development projects. The results also show that there is no significant difference in the mean rating of youth in Ogba/Ebgema/Ndoni Local Government Area and Ahoada East Local Government on the extent to which youths are involved in community needs identification and planning projects for sustainable community development projects. However, there is significant difference in the mean rating of youth in both groups on the extent to which youths are involved in executing community development projects for sustainability. It was recommended among others that: youth should be given the opportunities to participate in community needs identification and community leaders should give the youth the opportunities to collaborate with adult and experience members of the society especially professionals during their participation in community projects so that they can serve as mentors to them.