Economic History of Dale District since 1941 to 1991, Sidama Zone, Southern Ethiopia (Published)
The major goal of this study is to reconstruct the economic history of Dale District, 1941-1991. To achieve this goal, an attempt was made to collect qualitative data source from local elders, officer and archives of the administration office. The written documents which have relation with the study also examined and cross checked. The Dale District practices different economic activities like Agriculture which is based on cereal crop farming and cash crop farming. Coffee is mainly grown under the shade of tree (shade or forest coffee), either within forest or forest like environments, or in farming systems that in corporate specific shade plants usually indigenous (native) trees, time fruit trees and other crop plants. The high profitability of chat has also motivated farmers to hire labor for chat production in the district. Other economic activities like animal husbandry, hand craft technology and trade are common in the District. However agriculture was based on traditional farming system. The infrastructural development in dale District is a recent phenomenon. Un proportional service facilities and infrastructures compared with the high number of population found in the District. The main basic infrastructure like road, school, health centers, electric service, water supply has been established in the District before three decades but did not showed rapid economic development in the District.
Keywords: Dale Wereda, Development, Economy, Infrastructure, history
AN EXAMINATION OF THE NEXUS BETWEEN MODERN TRANSPORT INFRASTRUCTURE AND SOCIO-ECONOMIC GROWTH IN COLONIAL EASTERN NIGERIA (Published)
At the beginning of colonial administration, the British government envisaged her Nigerian territory to play a dual role: source of agricultural raw-materials and mineral resources for British industries; as well as an assured protected market for British manufactures. Thus, the provision of modern transport infrastructure was therefore required to achieve the above economic motive for the British colonization of Nigeria. Modern transport infrastructure in Eastern Nigeria was vital as it was thought as the surest way ‘to open up the vast hinterlands of the region to civilization’. Consequently, the colonial government laid emphasis on rail, roads, and harbor development, and these boosted its desired strategy for the economic exploitation of the vast resources of the region. Against this backdrop, this paper examines the development of modern transport infrastructure and their effects on the colonial economy of Eastern Nigeria. Utilizing both primary and secondary sources of data, the paper argues hat although the colonial government had ulterior motives in the development of these infrastructure, but they no doubt boosted socio-economic activities, and as well led to the emergence of major urban centers in Eastern Nigeria. It concludes by emphasizing the need for governments at various levels in modern South-east states of Nigeria and the federal government to give priority to the development and sustenance of modern transport infrastructure as this will facilitate the actualization of the much orchestrated Vision Twenty, twenty-twenty [20, 2020] of the present civilian administration in Nigeria.
Keywords: Colonial, Eastern Nigeria, Growth, Infrastructure, Modern transport, Nexus