ABSTRACT

This study focused on the assessment of the impact of management of poverty reduction  programmes on the quality of lives and households of communities in Osisoma Ngwa and Aba North local government areas of Abia State. The objectives of the study are, to ascertain the impact of poverty reduction programmes on the households living standards of communities, to examine the relationship that exists between management of poverty reduction programmes and people’s well-being in those communities, to ascertain the challenges faced by the management of anti-poverty programmes in implementation of the policy and to determine the strategies for effective management of poverty reduction programmes in the communities. The survey research design was adopted; the population was 210,000 members of the two selected local governments, from which 422 sample size were drawn. The instrument used for data collection was questionnaire designed on five point likert scale of agreed, strongly agreed, disagreed, strongly disagreed and undecided. The instrument was confirmed to have high validity and reliability. Four research questions were analyzed using frequencies and percentages while four hypotheses were tested using person’s correlation coefficient and multiple regression statistical tools with SPSS statistical package at 0.05 level of significance. The major findings were that management of poverty reduction programmes is active to ensure high quality of  lives of the households in those communities investigated, that there is a  significant relationship between  management of poverty reduction programmes and people’s wellbeing in those communities, there are challenges faced by management of poverty reduction programmes in implementation of such policy and that there are suitable strategies for effective management of poverty reduction programmes in those communities. The study recommends that management of anti-poverty programmes should be proactive in their job to add more quality to the lives of households in those communities investigated, that governments, philanthropists and NGOs should be extremely interested in the indigent and vulnerable (real poor) people when initiating and implementing such programmes such that it will ensure zero tolerance of irregularities, misappropriation of funds, and those who cut-corners during and after the program should be thoroughly investigated, prosecuted and sacked from the system to avoid subsequent occurrence. That key stakeholders should be involved in planning and decision making so that objectives of the programme can be realized.