Abstract:
The study examined the information needs and access to rural women for community development in Enugu North Senatorial Zone of Enugu State. Six research questions were formulated to guide the study. The specific objectives of the study are to: ascertain the information needs of the rural women, identify sources through which the rural women access information, ascertain the contribution of information to community development, examine the problem the women have in accessing information and suggest ways to enhance women access to information for community development. A descriptive survey was used for the study. The population of the study consists of 1,809 registered rural women in Community Based Women Organizations (CBWOs) in the three selected Local Government Areas (LGAs) of the study, out of which 263 respondents were sampled. The instrument used for data collection was questionnaire complemented with Focus Group Discussion (FGD). The instrument was validated by three experts, two from the Department of Library and Information Science, one from Measurement and Evaluation all from University of Nigeria, Nsukka. The research instrument was personally administered by researcher with help of research assistants to the respondents within a duration of six weeks. In the analysis of the data and information obtained through the research instrument and focus group discussion, frequency percentage and weighted mean were used for the quantitative data, while the information gathered from the FGD was qualitatively analyzed using content analysis approach. The findings indicated that women between the age of 35-44 are more in number followed by age range of 45-54, 25-34, and 65 years and above. Married women are more in number, followed by widows, single mothers and divorced. Those with Non-formal education are more than others in number followed by Primary, and Secondary School Certification holders. The women are mostly farmers, petty traders, self employed and civil servants. The women need information mainly on agriculture and health. Their major sources of information include town crier, community leaders and religious organizations. Timely and quality access to information can empower the rural women to facilitate community programmes and projects. There are obvious limitation to women access to information which include basically lack of formal education and lack of awareness on where to get useful information. Some strategies recommended include exposing the women to formal forms of education, establishing Adult Literacy Centres in the communities and establishing Community Information Centres that will help the women acquire skills and knowledge base that can empower them toward actualizing development goals.
