Impact of Foreign Aid on Poverty and Economic Development in Nigeria
CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION
This project focuses on the poverty profile in Nigeria, the foreign aids given to the nation to help alleviate poverty and how it affects the economic development of Nigeria. According to the World Bank website, “poverty is hunger. It is lack of shelter. Poverty is being sick and not being able to see a doctor. It is not being able to go to school, not knowing how to read, and not being able to speak properly. Poverty is not having a job, and is fear for the future, and living one day at a time. It is losing a child to illness brought about by unclean water. And lastly, it is powerlessness, lack of representation and freedom.”
Poverty is the inability to achieve a certain minimum standard of living. It is multidimensional, involving not only a lack of income, but also ill- health, illiteracy, lack of access to basic social services, and little opportunity to participate in processes that influence people’s lives. Mollie Orshansky, who developed the poverty measurements used by U.S government states that poverty is “to be poor is to be deprived of goods and services, and other pleasures that people around us take for granted” (Schwartz, 2005)
Poverty is pervasive; as about 1.2 billion people in the world still live on less than a dollar a day and nearly 850 million people go hungry every night. (World Bank)
According to Jhighan (2003), poverty is a misery-go-round plaguing the less developed countries.
1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
The poverty level in Nigeria; as described by the World Bank (1996) is a paradox that contradicts the immense wealth it has. Nigeria is a country endowed with human, agricultural, petroleum, gas and large untapped mineral resources. It earned over US$300 billion from just petroleum during the last three decades of the twentieth century. Rather than recoding remarkable progress in national, socio-economic development, Nigeria has retrogressed to being one of the 25 poorest countries of the 21st century while
This project focuses on the poverty profile in Nigeria, the foreign aids given to the nation to help alleviate poverty and how it affects the economic development of Nigeria. According to the World Bank website, “poverty is hunger. It is lack of shelter. Poverty is being sick and not being able to see a doctor. It is not being able to go to school, not knowing how to read, and not being able to speak properly. Poverty is not having a job, and is fear for the future, and living one day at a time. It is losing a child to illness brought about by unclean water. And lastly, it is powerlessness, lack of representation and freedom.”
Poverty is the inability to achieve a certain minimum standard of living. It is multidimensional, involving not only a lack of income, but also ill- health, illiteracy, lack of access to basic social services, and little opportunity to participate in processes that influence people’s lives. Mollie Orshansky, who developed the poverty measurements used by U.S government states that poverty is “to be poor is to be deprived of goods and services, and other pleasures that people around us take for granted” (Schwartz, 2005)
Poverty is pervasive; as about 1.2 billion people in the world still live on less than a dollar a day and nearly 850 million people go hungry every night. (World Bank)
According to Jhighan (2003), poverty is a misery-go-round plaguing the less developed countries.
1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
The poverty level in Nigeria; as described by the World Bank (1996) is a paradox that contradicts the immense wealth it has. Nigeria is a country endowed with human, agricultural, petroleum, gas and large untapped mineral resources. It earned over US$300 billion from just petroleum during the last three decades of the twentieth century. Rather than recoding remarkable progress in national, socio-economic development, Nigeria has retrogressed to being one of the 25 poorest countries of the 21st century while
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