ASSESSMENT OF WORLD BANK INTERVENTION IN COMBATING POVERTY IN BAKOLORI IRRIGATION SCHEME IN NIGERIA

Abstract

The quest for robust food production and the importance attached to it for a productive population as well as the interventionist role of one of the supra international financial organisation; the World Bank, concatenate with a view to eradicating poverty, generating employment and checkmate the incidence of rural-urban migration in the Bakolori Irrigation scheme. The work adopts both primary and secondary sources of data. For the primary method the research uses questionnaire and In-depth interview while for the secondary data the work adopts the use of text books, journals, reports, documents and other relevant information sourced from the internet. The shrink of the role of the state after the 1980s led to the takeover of liberal internationalism as an instrument of free market, deregulation and privatisation, hence the work adopts Neo-Liberal Theory whose proponents include Kant, Hayek, Oakeshot, Friedman and Harvey. The theory emphasises the centrality of free market based on the reduced role of the state in economic decision making and the participation of international financial institutions like the World Bank for individual entrepreneurial development. The population of the study area covers smallholder irrigation farmers in the Bakolori irrigation area, comprising three Local Government Areas namely, Bakura, Maradun and Talata Mafara with total population of 38,400 farmers covered under the Transforming Irrigation Management in Nigeria, TRIMING programme. The sample size of the study stood at 400. Thus, three hundred and eighty copies of questionnaire were distributed, while twenty respondents were interviewed. For the In-depth interview the key informants were officials of the TRIMING Programme at Talata Mafara, staff of the Bakolori Irrigation Scheme and some prominent farmers under the programme. Findings discovered that youth especially graduates paid a lip service to irrigation farming in the area. Secondly, the work discovered that poverty in Bakalori irrigation is reduced to a bearable level due to the World Bank programme.  Insecurity likewise threatens the smooth operation of the World Bank Transforming Irrigation Management in Nigeria TRIMING programme. This work therefore concludes that the impacts of World Bank intervention especially the TRIMING programme are both positively and negatively felt. Thus, it is recommended that more efforts should be intensified to educate the irrigation farmers especially the youth on how to boost their obtainable yields. Agro-allied processing plants should also be sited in the area in order to resuscitate the already ailing agro economy of the Bakolori dam and security situation should be given a serious concern so that the robust food production could be maintained.