Assessment of Social Capital Formation: A Case Study of Fadama III AF Project Intervention in Sokoto State, Nigeria (Published)
The major focus of this paper was to evaluate social capital formation and its implications to the achievement of Fadama III AF project among Fadama III AF beneficiaries in Sokoto state. Respondents for the study were drawn from seven local government areas of Sokoto state. The survey was conducted using structured questionnaire administered by trained enumerators. To ensure clarity and interpretability, the questionnaire were pre-tested on 40 respondents from the target population, before the main survey. Cluster/group level data via structured questionnaire was used for the study. Two hundred & sixty (260) respondents were randomly selected for the study and 242 questionnaires were used for the survey. The analytical tools used in the methodology include the descriptive statistics, Chi-square test and correlation analysis. The result on socio-economic characteristics showed that the average age of the respondents was 43.64 years while the variable for education has a value of 9.24 years, average of 6 years and maximum of 12 years. For household size, the average value was 7.23 people indicating that the respondents maintain fairly large households and the value for years of experience was 24 indicating that the respondents had long years of experience in farming with a minimum of 3 years and a maximum of 60 years. Mean for the number of skills acquired due to Fadama III AF intervention was 2.4 while the variable for the duration of Fadama III AF training was 2.35 days with a minimum of 0 and maximum of 10 days. This implied that each beneficiary received training for at least 3.3 days and some were trained for a maximum period of 10 days. Result of the study on determinants of social capital formation showed less than 1% of the respondents reported that they were discriminated against based on social status. On other variables of group cohesion, transparency and social inclusion, the respondents reported positive signs of group cohesion. A chi- square value of 90 was obtained and the results of chi-square test showed that there was a significant association (P<.001) between the status of the respondents and the intervention they received. The result of the spearman correlation showed positive and strong association between leadership trust and beneficiary performance. A spearman rho value of 0.635 was obtained. Similarly, there was a correlation between leadership trust and beneficiaries’ income. The value of the correlation coefficient was 0.328 indicating a moderate relationship. Leadership transparency and beneficiaries’ performance had a rho value of 0.607 showing a strong and positive correlation. The study recommends that the peculiarities and the role of women in our society should always be taken into account through formation of separate groups exclusively for women, more emphasis should be given to the issue of natural resource management as well as climate education/adaptation
Keywords: Fadama III AF, Intervention, Project, Social Capital, Sokoto