By Moguluwa, Shedrack Chinwuba
Poverty reduction, no doubt, is an integral part of development which in this context, refers to meeting of basic human needs and improvement in total quality of life. Since the satisfaction of basic human needs and wants is critical for development, poverty alleviation policymakers and implementers will contribute towards meeting these basic human needs by formulating, designing and implementing effective social and macromarketing-driven poverty alleviation policies and programmes, based on detailed knowledge and inputs from the beneficiaries. Based on the above background, the study sought to achieve the following objectives: to determine the extent to which policymakers and implementers applied marketing strategies in the poverty alleviation programmes’ design, implementation and campaigns; to find out whether poverty alleviation policy formulation and campaigns were based on information and inputs from the beneficiaries and stakeholders; to determine the level of poverty alleviation programmes awareness among the poor beneficiaries; to find out the extent of beneficiaries participation in the designing and implementation of poverty alleviation programmes and campaigns, and to determine whether the poor beneficiaries had easy and unhindered access to poverty alleviation programmes in Nigeria. The study employed survey design method and made use of questionnaire and indepth interview to generate the primary data used for the descriptive analysis and testing of the hypotheses formulated in the course of the study. However, secondary data were sourced through the internet and libraries. The geographical area of the study was the six states drawn from the six geopolitical zones plus the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja. The study employed multi-stage, purposive and simple random sampling techniques. The multistage sampling method was applied to the six geopolitical zones of South-South (SS), South-East (SE), South-West (SW), North-East (NE), North Central (NC) and North-West (NW) to reflect the regional dimension of poverty. Purposive sampling method was later used to select a state each from the six geopolitical zones as follows; Edo State (SS), Ebonyi State (SE), Lagos State (SW), Bauchi State (NE), Benue State (NC) and Kebbi State (NW) to reflect the rural-urban divide and prevalence of poverty based on information from the Federal Office of Statistics (FOS). Simple random sampling was used to select respondents that were administered questionnaire. The sample size was determined from the population of the selected states based on 2006 Census figure using Freund and Williams, and Taro Yamane sample size determination formula. This gave us a total sample size of 1,495 comprised of, Edo (158), Ebonyi (107), Lagos (442), Bauchi (230), Benue (208), Kebbi (158) and FCT-Abuja (192), used for the study. The data analysis was done using the SPSSWIN computer programming package, while t-test, Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and Correlation Analysis were used to test the hypotheses formulated in the study. Findings revealed that marketing strategies were inadequately employed by poverty alleviation policymakers and implementers in the design and implementation of poverty alleviation programmes and campaigns. The test on the first objective was supported by the policymakers/ implementers responses which were significant at F-value of 104.75 with P-value of 0.000 < 0.05. Again, poverty alleviation policy formulation and campaigns were not based on information and inputs from the beneficiaries and stakeholders as revealed by the Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) which tested the second objective of the study. The result showed an F-value of 240.9 and significance value of 0.128 which is greater than 0.05. The result on the third objective revealed that the programmes were designed with little inputs from the poor beneficiaries, the majority of them that reside in rural communities were not adequately sensitized, and information on poverty alleviation programmes was not effectively disseminated to them. This was statistically supported by ANOVA test at F-value of 522.1 and P-value of 0.187 > 0.05. Furthermore, the level of participation of the beneficiaries in poverty alleviation programmes design and implementation for the fourth objective was significantly low as revealed from an F-value of 727.0 and significance value of .000 which is less than 0.05. Finally, on the fifth objective, the Pearson Correlation Coefficient value of 0.124, was very weak to uphold any claim that the poor had easy and unhindered access to poverty alleviation programmes in Nigeria. Based on all the above, nine conclusions were drawn and eight recommendations were made. Also, vital areas that should be investigated or handled by future studies were suggested by the researcher. Furthermore, the researcher formulated and described a theoretical cum practical Model, known as the Poverty Alleviation Programmes and campaigns Model which is his vital contribution to knowledge.