COMMUNITY SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND POVERTY REDUCTION IN FEDERAL CAPITAL TERRITORY ABUJA, NIGERIA

Abstract

The number of Nigerian citizens falling into the poverty bracket is increasing daily as reported by the World Bank in 2023. Government effort in addressing the increasing poverty level in the country has not yielded the desire results, hence the adoption of community social entrepreneurship as a complementary approach to government efforts in reducing poverty in Nigeria. This study investigates empirically community social entrepreneurship as a complimentary approach to government effort in poverty reduction, using Gwagwalada area council in the Federal Capital Territory Abuja, Nigeria as a case in point. The quantitative research approach was adopted, using the cross-sectional survey research design to systematically select 144 respondents from the three communities that have benefited directly from the social enterprises installed by the nongovernmental organization in the study area, out of which 89 questionnaire were correctly filled and returned to the researcher for analysis. The study used both descriptive and inferential statistics to analyze the collected data from the units of analysis. Descriptive statistic was used to analyze the demographic characteristics of the respondent while SPSS version 27 was employed to validate the postulated hypotheses for the study. The study findings reveal that the installation of micro grain processing machine in PaikoKore community was very impactful in reducing the level of poverty in the community (β=0.369).The installation of community solar power in Dagiri improved the living standard of the people (β=0.323) while the advocacy for the use of animal dropping as manure in Dobi community increased farm output (β=0.219). This finding shows that, the regressors variable was statistically significant and have a positive effect on poverty reduction in the study area. On the strength of the findings, the study recommends the establishment and sustainability of community social enterprises as an alternative strategy for poverty reduction in the study area and Nigeria as a whole.