Abstract:
This work studied women participation in community development with special emphasis on Igbo Eze South Local Government Area, Enugu State. The exercise was carried out due to the observed lag in women participation in community development all over the country. The work had four key objectives which it sought to realize. These include: to ascertain the barriers to women participation in agriculture within the local government, to ascertain the impact of low level of education on women participation in community development, to determine how to enhance women participation in the politics of Igbo Eze South Local Government Area and finally to identify ways of empowering the women for optimal participation in the overall development of the communities. The researcher made use of both primary and secondary sources of data to generate data used for the study. These data were presented in tables and analysed using simple percentage. The researcher found out the various barriers to women participation in community development to include cultural practices, low level of women education, poverty among the rural women and violent that characterize the country’s politics. It is therefore recommended that cultural practices that deny women free access to land should be abrogated; Government should provide modern farm implements to the rural women farmers and also educate them on how to use these implements to enhance productivity; girl child education should be made free and also compulsory at least at secondary school levels.
