Abstract:
The worrisome level of poverty and understanding how to reduce it has been the major thrust of all development plans in all economies. The poverty incidence was 31.1% in Enugu State in 2004. Information is power and development communication is a veritable tool for fighting poverty. Information and communication must be strategic enough to achieve this. It must be integrated and institutionalized in the PRSP process. This involves the active solicitation of stakeholders’ perspective to help consider options to shape the formulation of policy, ensuring that the mechanisms are in place for a two-way flow of information and to build consensus among stakeholders about development. This work examined the place of information as a strategy for fighting poverty in the context of various strategies employed by National Poverty Eradication Programme (NAPEP) and Enugu State Ministry for Human Development and Poverty Reduction (MOHD&PR). It addressed the information and communication issues in poverty reduction from the perspective of the newly and very practicable mode, Synergistic Communication for Development (SCD); developed by Prof. Ikechukwu Nwosu. Our findings during our interactive sessions with the officials of the two agencies show little or no involvement of communication experts in their project formulation stage. Active participation and co-operation that promotes synergy amongst the various stakeholders in a project life cycle were not maintained. Our empirical estimation reveals that: National Poverty Eradication Programme, (NAPEP), uses information but not as a strategy for fighting poverty. The Ministry for Human Development and Poverty Reduction, Enugu State uses less information than NAPEP. As expected the work corroborated other authorities that information is a veritable tool for fighting poverty and that unequal access to information could make some people more well off than others. It concludes by recommending amongst others that information and communication should be strategic enough for fighting poverty and not as a mere awareness creation and educating process. The process must involve information and communication experts and all other stakeholders in the formulation, implementation, monitoring and evaluation stages of the poverty eradication programme.
