COMMUNITY NEEDS ASSESSMENT FOR PROMOTION OF SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
Dr E.O Aruma
Department Of Adult and Non-Formal Education
University Of Port Harcourt, Port Harcourt
Rivers State
Abstract
The paper focused on community needs assessment for promotion of sustainable community development. The paper explored the concept of community needs assessments and sustainable community development. The paper identified provision of learning opportunities, promotion of needs awareness creation, report on community needs assessment as a referral framework for promotion of sustainable community development, community needs assessment as a guide to community development planning among others as the roles of community needs assessment in promotion of sustainable community development. The paper equally identified lack of national community development philosophy for sustainable community development, lack of clearly stated community development policy and lack of foresight in community development planning among others as the problems which militate against community needs assessment for promotion of sustainable community development. The following recommendations are made based on the issues discussed in the paper: (1) There should be a national philosophy to guide community development in Nigeria as a developing country. (2) There should be national community development policy to be used as a framework for promotion of sustainable community development. (3) Community development sector as an important area of development that touches on the masses should enjoy good constitutional provision and legislative support of the three tiers of government (federal, state and local) and other relevant stakeholders to participate actively in promotion of sustainable community development.
Keyword: Community, Needs, Assessment, Promotion, Sustainable and Development.