Researches & Reports
Monday, 2 April 2012
NATIONAL ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT AND DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY (NEEDS) AND HER CONTRIBUTION TO POVERTY ALLEVIATION IN NIGERIA
INTRODUCTION
The
National Economic Empowerment and Development strategy (NEEDS) is the response
to the development challenges of Nigeria. In 1999, most people grossly
underestimated the extent of social, political, and economic decay of the
country. Since 1999, Nigeria has succeeded in stabilizing the polity,
consolidated the democratic governance structure and made modest progress in
the social and economic spheres. Over the next four years (2003-2007) NEEDs
will consolidate the achievements of the previous four years and lay a solid
foundation for sustainable poverty reduction, employment generation, wealth
creation, and value re-orientation.
However,
NEEDs as a home-grown reform programme, has for the first time embarked on an
extensive consultative and participatory process, involving major stakeholders
in the design of NEEDs to ensure the sustainability of NEEDs beyond 2007 and to
improve the living standard of Nigerians, generate income and provide food
security for the teeming Nigerian population as aimed in the Obasanjo reforms
of cassava initiative:1
NEEDS
PROMOTING PRIVATE ENTERPRISE
NEEDs
proposes private sector to become Nigeria’s engine room of growth, its motor
needs to be primed.’ Thus, the government has to make certain fundamental
changes to create an environment in which business will thrive, in the language
of economists, it has to create a macro-economic frame work, a kind of over
arching, national house keeping budget that will ensure that Nigeria makes the
most of what it earns as a nation, that it spends only what it can afford and
that all levels of government used the same budget.
However,
as asserted by president Olusegun Obansanjo “in my dream I see a new Nigeria in
the hands of God. As I traverse all parts of Nigeria, I feel a New Nigeria
emerging.” 2 This was at a National Planning Commission forum in
2004. The government therefore needs to develop infrastructure, particularly
power generation, transport and telecommunications infrastructure to stimulate
growth of the private sector.
NEEDS
MAINTAINING THE ENVIRONMENT
Nigeria
is endowed with a rich and diverse natural environment but over the years it
has reaped its riches with insufficient cares for the livelihoods and well
being of future generations. Thus, NEEDs will address several areas of concern:
·
Waste production and disposal
·
Deforestation
·
Conservation of unique habitats
·
Pollution and other problems 3
However, NEEDs aims to turn this bleak
picture around by establishing a regulatory agency to enforce environmental
law, monitor industry compliance laws, conduct environmental audits and impact
assessments and set standard as expatiated by Oche.4
As further asserted by theorist of policy
analysis according to Oche no meaningful theory can be acceptable and
thoroughly studied without giving due attention to the environment within which
it takes place.5Thus, NEEDs seeks to develop a private public sector
partnership scheme to address the increasing problems of waste management.
NEEDS
IMPROVING INFASTRUCTURE
NEEDs
reforms in the transport sector aim to complete the 3,000 kilometer network of
roads and strengthen the Roads Maintenance Agency, which oversees the repair
and rehabilitation of some 500 roads in Nigeria. The government aims to develop
the country’s sea ports to handle modern shipping activities, upgrade the
railway and achieve total radar coverage of Nigeria airspace.6
Power
alone accounted for over 5 percent of new business start up cost, therefore
simply providing more reliable power could triple the amount Nigerian
Industries produce by 2007. Thus, under NEEDs, the National Electric Power
Authority, a government enterprise will be unbundled into distinct business
units which will eventually be privatized.7
Many
people in Nigeria spend upward of 3 hours daily collecting water for domestic
use, therefore providing them with safe water that can offer than the chance to
use those hours in more economically productive activities, will be one of
NEEDs aims to increase access to safe drinking water for at least 60 percent of
the population.8
NEEDS
IMPROVING AGRICULTURE
Agriculture
has suffered from years of mismanagement, inconsistence and poorly conceived
government policies and the lack of basic infrastructure. Still, the sector
accounts for over 26.8% of Nigeria’s GDP.9 Agriculture is Nigeria’s
second largest source of national wealth, after crude oil. NEEDs will promote
the cultivation of improved, higher yielding crop varieties and provide extra
support to Agricultural Research and Training, NEEDs aims to encourage business
interests to provide credit and supply and distribute agricultural inputs such
as seeds, fertilizers and machinery. Silo complexes will be refurbished to
increase the capacity of the food reserve programme and move close to food
security.10
2.6 NEEDS
PROMOTING INDUSTRY
Despite the fact that available data
indicate a decline in poverty incidence from 66.5 percent to 54.4 percent as
indicated by an NBS 2005 assessment, NEEDs proposes developing the industrial
sector by relying more on local resources and less on imports, it will be
guided by a local research and development strategy that seeks to promote science
and technology based on small and medium size enterprise.11 These
enterprise will be developed in science and technology labs and technological
incubation centres. They will focus on food processing, industrial chemicals,
information and communication technologies, biotechnology, electronics, and
space technology, energy, oil and gas.12
A major policy thrust of NEEDs is
the idea that Nigeria should stop squandering its natural resources by selling
them as crude products. The more this product can be processed within Nigeria,
the more jobs they will create and the more export earning they will generate.
NEEDs is setting ambitions targets for the sector: 7 percent annual growth, 70
percent capacity utilization and 70 percent of investment made by the private
sector by 2007.13
Friday, 23 March 2012
PALM KERNEL SHELL AS A SUBSTITUTE FOR COARSE AGGREGATE IN CONCRETE WORKS
This research gives an
account of the study conducted on the substitution of palm kernel shell for
coarse aggregate in concrete works. It is aimed at determining the properties
of palm kernel shells (PKS) that makes it suitable for concrete works in place
of natural aggregate and the effects of mixing ratios on the strength
characteristics of palm kernel shell concrete. A number of tests were conducted
on the Palm Kernel Shells and concrete produced with palm kernel shells (PKSC).
Tests conducted on PKS are; sieve analysis, fineness modulus, specific gravity,
water absorption capacity and moisture content, Aggregate Crushing Value and
Aggregate Impact Value tests respectively. While the tests conducted on palm
kernel shell concrete (PKSC) include slump test, density, compressive strength
test, modulus of rupture, splitting tensile strength test and modulus of
elasticity test. Concrete mixes of 1: 2: 4, 1:1½:3, 1:2:4 were used to produce
cubes, beams and cylinders which were cured for 28 days before testing. Slump
test was carried out as concrete cubes; beams and cylinder were being casted.
The results obtained gave the specific gravity of palm kernel shell as 1.29,
thickness ranging from 0.7mm to 4.0mm, fineness modulus of 5.09 and Aggregate
crushing value of 5.02% which are less than that of normal weight aggregate but
within the specified range of values for light weight aggregates classifying
palm kernel shell concrete as a lightweight aggregate. The palm kernel shell
has bulk density of 580kg/m3 and aggregate impact value of 16.19%
which is an indication that PKS can conveniently be used for structural light
weight constructions as light weight aggregate. The Average moisture content of
6.12% obtained for the PKS which also falls within the specification for light
weight aggregates but greater than that of the Normal weight aggregates is an
indication that light weight aggregates retains moisture than normal weight
aggregates. The particle size
distribution shows that palm kernel shell has a maximum grain size within the
range 16.0mm and 17.0mm, although, this is less than that of normal weight
aggregate being replaced, it is light enough to be used as a coarse aggregate.
The highest slump value of 30cm was obtained for the nominal mix 1:1:2 which
make it the most workable mix. The results show that concrete mix of 1:1:2 with
compressive strength of 9.86N/mm2 at 28 days hydration period is
similar to previous research findings that the compressive strength of palm
kernel shell concrete (PKSC) ranges from 5N/mm2 to 25N/mm2
based on mix design by Okafor; (1988). The density of the PKSC is lower than
2050 kg/m3 but greater than 1700kg/m3 which characterize PKSC
as a lightweight concrete; higher strength can be achieved by better mix.
Result of test on modulus of rupture and splitting tensile strength exhibited
similar trend to that of compressive strength test in the nominal mix 1:1:2
gave the highest values of modulus of rupture, splitting tensile strength and
modulus of elasticity respectively. The results show that increase in the ratio
of sand to cement relative to increase in PKS contents, leads to decrease
compressive strength. Hence, to produce a high strength value of PKSC will
require low ratio of sand to cement.
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