ABSTRACT

The study evaluated the effect of Nigeria Erosion and Watershed Management Project Livelihood Enhancement Activities on the Beneficiaries’ Poverty Status in Southeast Nigeria. Eight objectives were used to guide the study. A total of 360 beneficiaries were selected for the study using multistaged purposive and random sampling techniques. Primary data were collected with the aid of a structured questionnaire and analyzed with appropriate descriptive and inferential statistics such as such as frequency counts, percentages, mean (), ANOVA, Pearson correlation and multiple regression for the test of the null hypotheses at 0.05% level of significance. The mean age of the respondents was approximately 43 years. Majority of the respondents (50.56%) were males, while 49.44% were females. Majority (61.67%) were married and cultivated 1.9 hectares on the average. The mean household size was 7 person household. About N39,214.01 was the mean monthly income, whereas, 17 years was their mean farming experience. The study identified livestock, crop farming and agro-processing as some of the livelihood enhancement activities implemented by the respondents. Results showed that engagement in Nigeria Erosion and Watershed Management Project Livelihood Enhancement Activities improved the income generating ability of the respondents (= 3.56) and business opportunities in their community (= 3.47) among others. The respondents participated in various activities such as decision on location of community interest groups projects (= 3.42) and training on management of sub-grant (= 3.37) among others. Further analysis showed that the poverty profile of the respondents improved as a result of their engagement in likelihood enhancement activities. Nigeria Erosion and Watershed Management Project was effective in writing/developing sound proposals for financial assistance (= 3.24), initiating, establishing and monitoring Community Interest Groups activities (= 3.34) among others. Null hypotheses were tested and rejected at 0.05 level of significance. It was concluded that implementation of Nigeria Erosion and Watershed Management Project Livelihood activities had significant positive effects on the socio-economic well-being of the beneficiaries. Necessary recommendations such as effective collaboration with Institutions, timely, provision and disbursement of funds, prompt payment of counterpart funds as well as adequate monitoring of CIGs activities were made among others.