Role of Infrastructure and Institutional Services in Socio-Economic Development of Rural People in Southern Ethiopia

Abstract

The highest aspiration of government and development practitioners within a given country is towards achieving economic development. To achieve economic development and benefit communities with its output, infrastructure and institutional development is instrumental. This study was conducted to identify determinants and trends of rural infrastructure and social service development in four rural communities. The result revealed that all the study areas have full access to extension service, input, education services including adult literacy program, while out of the four only two have access to rural road and transportation facilities. During the survey, all the villages had no access to bank, public telephone and postal service rather the inhabitants travel long distance to nearby towns for accessing the services. Similarly all the villages considered in the study have no access to nearby schools and low access to health service forced to travel long distance from 18 to 61 km. The findings recommended that decision makers and development practitioners working in government and NGOs have to give high priority in developing and strengthening infrastructure and institutional services to improve the living standard of people. Lastly high empowerment should be given to the involvement of local communities in infrastructure and institutional service availability of their locality.