Community-needs assessment: Ugwuanyi visits 478 communities in 2 years

Dr Eric Oluedo, the Head, Visit Every Community (VEC) Directorate, Office of the Governor Enugu State, say Gov. Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi has visited 478 communities and some special communities within two years.

Oluedo disclosed this to our reporter in Enugu on Thursday.

“The visit, an interactive session between the government and people of each of the communities, is meant to get community-needs assessment from the people to drive the ongoing bottom-up approach of development adopted by the state government.’’

He said that the visits had afforded the governor the opportunities to meet with his people one-on-one and felt their pains and gains while living within their communities.

The governor’s aide said that the visits had given the people the voice to say their most pressing needs or challenges and how they could be tackled with collaborative efforts of the people and government.

“Visit Every Community (VEC) Initiative, has led Gov. Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi to sit down one-on-one with community members to chart realistic and inclusive community development programmes for them.

“You can see that we have hundreds of community-based developmental projects ongoing in Enugu State through the instrumentality of the VEC.

“And now, the community members are part of the projects since they monitor and report to the VEC office on how their projects are being executed.

“In some communities, we handed over the entire project to a formidable and trusted committee to execute, while the state government releases money in phases as each phase of the project is completed.

“In all, we have micro-community projects or projects that will be between five million naira and N12 million as well as those that will gulp up to N20 million.

“So, with this, basic community needs like Primary Health care centre, boreholes, electrification and construction of town halls, markets, primary schools are done to solve communities’ immediate and pressing needs,’’ he said.

Oluedo, former Enugu State Commissioner for Rural Development, urged other state governments to adopt the bottom-up approach to fast-track development in the country.

He said that part of the problem of development in Africa had been the up-to-down approach to development which had left no room for people in the communities to contribute and participate in developments meant for them.

According to him, the ongoing bottom-up approach to development in Enugu State has given every community and group in the state a sense of belonging and allow holistic development to get to rural communities.

It was reported that special community categories, include conglomerate of motherless babies homes, orphanages, old people’s home, schools for the deaf and dumb, schools for the blind and schools for children with special needs, among others.