Determinants of rural women participation in rural community development programmes in Rivers State, Nigeria

The main objective of this research was to examine the determinants of rural women participation in rural community development  programmes in Rivers State, Nigeria. Specifically, the study described the socio-economic characteristics of rural women in the State,  identified the different rural community development programmes and activities being implemented in the study area, determined the  level of participation of rural women in rural community development programmes in the state, and examined the effect of socio- economic variables on the participation of rural women in rural community development programmes. A multi-stage sampling approach  was used to obtain a sample size of 360 women from the three agricultural zones within the State. The researchers used a questionnaire  and interview schedule to gather data from the participants. The collected data were then analyzed using descriptive statistics such as frequency counts, means, and percentage; and Binary Logit Regression Model and oneway Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) were used to  analyse the hypotheses. Results showed that the mean percentage of the women was 42 years, majority (79.77%) of them were married,  97.11% had formal education, 49.13% belonged to women association, very few (17.65%) of them held leadership positions and farming/ homestead gardening was their primary occupation (52.89%). The prevailing initiatives for rural community development mostly focused  on enhancing security for market women and farmers (67%) and a few (31%) of rural women were actively involved in rural community  development. Degree of engagement was low (mean = 1.41) with mean age of 42 years. No statistically significant differences (P> 0.05)  were seen in the degree of engagement of rural women in rural community development programmes among women residing in the  three agricultural zones in the State. In order to enhance women's engagement, it is imperative for agents of rural development to  prioritise development activities that cater to their specific needs.