Women’s Perception on Community Based Development Organization Activities in Imo State, Nigeria

Women’s community based organization serves as the apex organization for rural development and their perception in the activities involved should not be overlooked. This is because perception precedes action. The study assessed women’s perception on Community Based Development Organization activities in Imo State, Nigeria. These women organizations were purposively selected from 10 communities with developmental projects. Random sampling procedure was adopted to select 120 members of the organization, thus 12 respondents from each community. Primary data were collected with a structured questionnaire and analyzed using descriptive statistics such as frequency distribution, percentages and mean scores. The result on personal/socio-economic characteristics revealed that a good proportion of the respondents fall within the age bracket of 31-50 (58%), married (75%) with household size of 1-5 (66.7%). Also 66% of the respondents had a secondary and tertiary education while the majority were farmers and traders/artisans (80%) with a minimum income of N10, 000 – 200,000 per month. The result also revealed that the respondents were involved in all the developmental activities listed. The major activities include: attending meetings (100%), mobilization of funds (100%), contribution of time/labour (83.3%), actual execution of projects (83.3%), awareness creation (75%), environmental sanitation (66.7%) and healthcare provision (66.7%) respectively. The respondents’ perception on community-based development activities involved showed high and positive perception (M = 3.2) while rural development in the community ranked 1st, non-recognition of women as partners in development by government, feeling of joy and satisfaction in involvement and no compensation from the government ranked 2nd and 3rd respectively. The study therefore, recommends that the government should identify and recognize the efforts of the women organization as supportive to rural development and try to compensate through awards/training. The women organization should organize to get assistance from national and international agencies as well as consult with governmental development agencies.