ABSTRACT
This study examined the utilization of available government and development partners sponsored community development projects for sustainable livelihood in rural areas of Osun State. In pursuance of this, six research questions were raised and one hypothesis was formulated and tested.
The research design adopted for the study was a descriptive survey research design. The population of the study comprised 683,391 rural dwellers in the 31 local government areas of Osun state. The multistage sampling technique was used to select 1105 rural dwellers from 100 communities in 10 local government areas as the sample size. The data for the study were collected with the use of questionnaire and check-list. Data were analysed, using frequency, meanand standard deviation for the research questions while t-test statistics was used to test the hypothesis.
The findings of this study revealed that there are many available community development projects sponsored by government and development partners for sustainable livelihood for rural dwellers in Osun State. These include Road rehabilitation, women empowerment, rural electrification, water, construction of market and town hall projects. Findings revealed that there is a significant difference in the utilisation of community development projects sponsored by the government and those sponsored by development partners for sustainable livelihood of rural dwellers in rural communities in Osun State. Utilisation of community development projects influence the socio-economic livelihood in the areas of transportation, health; promote harmony; and increase the level of confidence among rural dwellers. Based on these findings, it was recommended thatgovernment should adopt development partners' methods in providing development projects for rural communities and that any community development projects that are to be initiated in any rural community should be in line with the needs and livelihood desires of rural dwellers.
