ABSTRACT
This study examines the performance and development impact of community-based organisations (CBOs) in rural communities in Nasarawa state. The study focused on 30actively engaged CBOs selected from the three Senatorial Districts of the state. Questions answered by the research include: What are the categories, characteristics and organisational structure of CBOs in Nasarawa state? What is the pattern of performanceof CBO projects in the study area? What are the explanatory factors which account for CBO project performance? What is the overall development impact of the CBOs in the state? What lessons can be learnt from the activities of CBOs in the development of rural communities in the state? The data collected via questionnaire administration, where the respondents were sampled using the purposive sampling technique. Focus Group Discussions (FGD), Citizen Satisfaction Survey (CSS) and Key Informants' Interview (KII) were key sources of information.The data was analysedto show the relationship between CBO performance and their characteristics. The research result reveals six typologies of CBOS that were actively engaged in small to medium scale rural development projects.The CBOs are more interested and most successful in executing education (25.9%), environmental sanitation (13.6%) and rural infrastructure (14.1%).This is followed byprojects in the health sector (9.6%). Further analyses of the data showed that projects in the educational sector made the greatest impact in the benefitting communities, while electricity, water supply and welfare projects recorded minimal success rates. Spatial variation in CBO performance across the zones were also determined to be strong in the northern, southern and western zones of the region. The CBOshowever face a number of challenges which include low participation by the youth engagement which the study revealed at only 8%. However there is a rising level of women participation which though only at 9%, appears to have a better promise in the future. Another challenge to CBO performance has to do with sources of funding or resource mobilisation due to in-ability or difficulty in sourcing for funds through external sources with which to augment their internally generated revenue due to poverty or generally low income status of individual members of the organisations in the respective zones. The research also revealed a generally low literacy level and lack of ICT skills among members of rural-based CBOs. Education and income, rather than size and age of CBOs showed negative correlation with performance (-0.12 and -0.20, respectively in the correlation analysis). Overall, the research findings have however demonstrated that CBOs are sustainable tools for community development and complementary drivers in social services delivery in the rural communities by virtue of their style of resource mobilisation and decision making as shown in several other studies in different parts of the World. The study recommends support to CBOs in critical areas as funding, resource mobilization, technical, leadership and ICT skills acquisition, in addition to advocating for the establishment of, or instituting a CBO Board to be responsible for regulating CBO project activities. A model is proposed for the purpose of achieving effectiveness and efficiency in CBO performance and contribution in the community development process. Key words:Performance, Impact, Community-Based Organisations, Rural Areas.