Constraints to Selected Social Institutions Implementing Rural Development Activities in Rivers State, Nigeria

Social Institution is a tool organized by human society to guide and carry out the activities needed for satisfaction of human needs especially in the development of the rural areas. Studies have been carried out on the activities of social institutions. However, there are factors militating against the execution of these activities. Therefore this study with the aim to ascertain the constraints to selected social institutions implementing rural development activities in Rivers State, Nigeria. Multi-stage sampling procedure was used to select 430 respondents and data were gotten from the respondents using structured questionnaire. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyse data. From findings, good proportions (55.2%) of the respondents were male while females were few with 44.8%. The mean age was 45years, majority (48.9%) were married, 48,.9% had tertiary education, the mean household size was 5 persons, 48.5% were self-employed and 57.0% earned a monthly income of N50,000 and above. The major sources of financial support for the social institution are from personal savings and the least is from social organizations and association. The grand mean for religious, education and family institutions were 2.61, 2.39 and 2.53 respectively indicating that the overall challenges experienced by the selected social institutions are statistically significant with religious and family and significant with education. The study concludes that social institutions through personal funding, external support and fund raising/pledges have contributed immensely in rural development activities for sustainable human development in the study area. Therefore, recommends that government in all facets should strengthen the capacity of local authorities to effectively manage resources and provide essential services.