期刊名称：Human Geographies : Journal of Studies and Research in Human Geography
印刷版ISSN：1843-6587
电子版ISSN：2067-2284
出版年度：2020
卷号：14
期号：2
页码：267-287
DOI：10.5719/hgeo.2020.142.6
语种：English
出版社：University of Bucharest
摘要：With the cliché of bringing development closer to the people, the Nigerian government, like many African countries, institutionalized the process of creating Local Government Areas (LGAs) and used it as a policy instrument for more than four decades. This study adopted a survey research design using data on 24 local development indicators, aimed at appraising the efficacy of this policy as a development tool. Quantitative analysis using Principal Component Analysis and its statistical outputs of initial eigenvalues and orthogonal scores shows that 36% of the LGAs ranked lowest on the dimensions of development before the creation of additional jurisdictions in 1996, while 20% and 44% ranked intermediate and highest respectively. Post-partitioning, the proportions were 24.4%, 39.4% and 36.4% respectively, thus providing evidence of the positive development impact of decentralization. The findings, however, throw up issues of distributional inequality in public investments which could be addressed by conscious planning efforts.
关键词：Decentralization; Distributional Inequality; Jurisdictional Partitioning; Jurisdictional Space; Nigeria; Regional development
