Significance of non government organizations in poverty alleviation in rural areas

Abstract

This research encapsulates the significance of Non -Government Organisations in the alleviation of poverty in rural areas of Itirikwa in Adjumani district. It divulges the background of poverty and Non – Government Organisations right from their definitions to unravelling their global, regional, and national trends. Globally, it is estimated that almost 3 billion people live on less than $2.50 a day, and at least 80% of humanity lives on less than $10 a day with 19.5% of the world’s children live in extreme poverty. The number of Ugandans living in poverty increased to 10 million from 6.6 million. The main objective of the study was to establish the significance of NGOs in poverty alleviation in rural areas, while the specific objectives included establishing the poverty status of households in the study area, investigating the effect of socio-economic factors related to poverty and their effect on the success of development projects. The study used primary data where questionnaires and personal interviews were used, and households whose household heads were to be interviewed were chosen using simple random sampling from clusters. Data collected was entered in Epi-data and analysed in STATA version 14. This analysis was carried out on a univariate level, bivariate level, and multivariate level where a multinomial logistic regression model was used. Slightly more than a quarter of the households were poor (26.67%), which reflected reduction rather than alleviation of poverty. The results showed that possession of land and, access to savings facilities increased the odds of being well-off relative to the middle-class since households will be able to save, amass wealth and invest accordingly. Being married also increased the odds of being poor due increased dependency resulting from increased number of household members. Those involved in agriculture were significantly less likely to gain positive change than households involved in business and other activities. There is need to; increase the scope of NGO activities in order to alleviate poverty in rural areas, increase access to savings facilities to enable households save and invest more, improve the land tenure system in order to increase the productivity of the households involved in agriculture and, emphasis on family planning for married couples to reduce the number of household members hence reducing on the dependency level.