The Effect of Poor Planning Policies and Practices on the Development of Abraka Town, Delta State-Nigeria
Chapter One
Aim and Objectives of the Study
The aim of this study is to access the effect of poor planning policies and practices on the development of town in Abraka with a view to proffer solution and recommendation that would ensure a more efficient and effective developmental control and proper planning policies practices in the study area. However, the specific objectives include to;
- examine the existing town planning policies/practices, and the developmental control machineries in the study area;
- access the factors that encourage non-compliance to planning standards in the study area;
- examine the influence of the existing planning policies in Abraka
- examine the practices and the rate of non-compliance to the planning standards in the study area;
- determine appropriate measures that will enhance effective development control in the study-area.
CHAPTER TWO
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
Development
Development is an ever-changing step towards achieving some goal and the optimum realization of the well being of people in their communities It is not an absolute but a relative term because it is difficult to measure, especially as a particular activity may be considered development or a step forward in a particular society, but it may not be so considered in another society. Development is very much related with aspirations and expectations of the people. It is interaction of the people with the natural resources available to them. Quite often, development is viewed as some dynamic change of society from one stage to another without assuming that it is the final stage. Marsh (1996) conceived the concept as huge changes in the lives of people and societies and a progression from one condition to another; that is, from underdevelopment to development. The modern concept of development can be traced to 1987 when the report of the Brundtland Commission defined development to include economic, environmental, socio-cultural and health as well as political needs. In defining development therefore, one cannot avoid concerns with social and political issues, while focusing on goals, ideals and economic matters. Some scholars have, however, emphasized the need for human-centred development; that is, the focus of development needs not be machines or institutions, but people. In the same vein, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) maintained that the people must be at the centre of all development (UNDP 2008). The World Bank (2008) also asserted that investing in people, if done rightly, would provide the finest foundation for lasting development. It further noted that all people have the same basic needs in form of clean water, fresh air, comfortable housing, etc., which must be met if development is to take place. Development is also seen as an aspect of desirable and planed change influenced by governmental action. Thus development is a valuebased and a broad concept. Development is equally a multi-dimensional process involving the reorganization and reorientation of the entire economic and social systems (Todaro and Smith 2009). It transcends beyond the improvement in income and output to the radical transformation in institutional, social and administrative structures. Although development is commonly seen in a national context, its holistic realization may necessitate fundamental modifications of the international economic and social system. Development is therefore a manysided process. At the level of the individual, it also connotes increased skill and capacity, greater freedom, creativity, self-discipline, responsibility and material well being (Rodney 1972). Although the orthodox view of development assumes that growth in income will translate automatically to improvements in the welfare of the citizens of any given country (lyoha et al. 2003), due to the experience of many less developed countries in the 1950s and 1960s, which revealed the simultaneous existence of rapid growth and the general deterioration in the condition of human life; attempts have been made to humanize the concept of development. In the thinking of Seers (Todaro 2009), for instance, evaluation of developmental levels must be concerned with what has been happening to poverty, unemployment and inequality. Besides, development is a continuous process of generating and more efficiently allocating resources for achieving greater socially satisfying ends (Aboyade 1973). Development is, by implication, made up of two basic and fundamental interrelated parts: increasing the availability of resources and improving the utilization of available resources. While the first component encompasses the natural, human and financial, the second component is a complex function of social organization, level of technology, efficiency of management and the content of public policy (Aboyade 1999). The resource that is primarily critical to the development process is the natural resource. This is because the natural endowment constitutes the basis for man’s primary economic activities. All the same, from the perspective of resource availability for economic development, the significant factor is not simply the size of the surface area; rather, it is the productive capacity represented by the economic quality of the physical environment.
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Research design
The researcher used descriptive research survey design in building up this project work the choice of this research design was considered appropriate because of its advantages of identifying attributes of a large population from a group of individuals. The design was suitable for the study as the study sought to the effect of poor planning policies and practices on the development of Abraka town
Sources of data collection
Data were collected from two main sources namely:
(i)Primary source and
(ii)Secondary source
Primary source:
These are materials of statistical investigation which were collected by the research for a particular purpose. They can be obtained through a survey, observation questionnaire or as experiment; the researcher has adopted the questionnaire method for this study.
Secondary source:
These are data from textbook Journal handset etc. they arise as byproducts of the same other purposes. Example administration, various other unpublished works and write ups were also used.
Population of the study
Population of a study is a group of persons or aggregate items, things the researcher is interested in getting information the effect of poor planning policies and practices on the development of Abraka town. 200 residents in Abraka town, Delta state were selected randomly by the researcher as the population of the study.
CHAPTER FOUR
PRESENTATION ANALYSIS INTERPRETATION OF DATA
Introduction
Efforts will be made at this stage to present, analyze and interpret the data collected during the field survey. This presentation will be based on the responses from the completed questionnaires. The result of this exercise will be summarized in tabular forms for easy references and analysis. It will also show answers to questions relating to the research questions for this research study. The researcher employed simple percentage in the analysis.
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
Introduction
It is important to ascertain that the objective of this study was to ascertain the effect of poor planning policies and practices on the development of Abraka town. In the preceding chapter, the relevant data collected for this study were presented, critically analyzed and appropriate interpretation given. In this chapter, certain recommendations made which in the opinion of the researcher will be of benefits in addressing the challenges of poor planning policies and practices on the development of Abraka town
Summary
This study was the effect of poor planning policies and practices on the development of Abraka town. Five objectives were raised which included: examine the existing town planning policies/practices, and the developmental control machineries in the study area, access the factors that encourage non-compliance to planning standards in the study area, examine the influence of the existing planning policies in Abraka, examine the practices and the rate of non-compliance to the planning standards in the study area and determine appropriate measures that will enhance effective development control in the study-area. In line with these objectives, two research hypotheses were formulated and two null hypotheses were posited. The total population for the study is 200 residents of Abraka. The researcher used questionnaires as the instrument for the data collection. Descriptive Survey research design was adopted for this study. A total of 133 respondents made men, women, youths and students were used for the study. The data collected were presented in tables and analyzed using simple percentages and frequencies
Conclusion
Development planning that involves processes which ensure that national policies and strategies are realized and development concerns at all levels are fully integrated into the overall national development thrusts are a sinequa-non for the translation of initiatives and programmes into tangible results that will meet globally recognized and acceptable benchmarks of true development. The efficacy of such plans will therefore require, as a matter of exigency, getting the basics right that includes instituting sound development policies, ensuring good economic management, promoting private investment, developing human resource capacity, fostering synergistic public/private sector partnership and collaboration as well as providing good physical and institutional infrastructure.
Recommendation
There should be a true development plan; a reasonable measure of discipline among executors as far as the plan implementation is concerned, especially as a plan can be said to be meaningless if the political authorities are not genuinely committed to its implementation with a sense of discipline, public sector efficiency, public/private sector synergy and collaboration and attitudinal change that will create a genial climate clement for the much desired development on a sustainable basis in Nigeria.
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