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European Journal of Social Sciences Studies ISSN: 2501-8590 ISSN-L: 2501-8590 Available on-line at: www.oapub.org/soc Volume 2 │ Issue 7 │ 2017 doi: 10.5281/zenodo.1048742 THE APPLICATION OF PARTICIPATORY GEOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION SYSTEM IN COMMUNITY DRIVEN DEVELOPMENT PROJECT IN EKITI STATE, NIGERIA Ayeni, Gabriel Olusegun1i, Odeyemi, Chris Adebola2 Operations Manager, Ekiti State Community and 1 Social Development Agency, Ado - Ekiti, Ekiti State, Nigeria The Federal Polytechnic, Ado - Ekiti, 2 Ekiti State, Nigeria Abstract: The inequalities in the spatial distribution of infrastructural facilities have led to exclusion, poverty and lopsidedness in sustainable development. This is worsened by lack of reliable spatial and local data to plan for development issues. This paper employs the benefits of Participatory Geographical Information System to data collection and analysis for decision making in Community Driven Development at Upperland community, Ado- Ekiti in Nigeria. The data used for the study were collected through Participatory Rural Appraisal - Stakeholders' Analysis, Focus Group Discussion, Transect Walk and Voting- while ArcGIS 10.2.2 software was used for analysis such buffering. The results showed that the community people have indigenous spatial knowledge that development planners can rely upon. The study concludes that to have a sustainable community development, planners should tap into motivation, desire, knowledge and networks of local communities. Keywords: geographical information system, community development plans, global positioning system, focus group discussion, participatory rural appraisal, spatial indigenous knowledge Copyright © The Author(s). All Rights Reserved. © 2015 – 2017 Open Access Publishing Group 306 Ayeni, Gabriel Olusegun, Odeyemi, Chris Adebola THE APPLICATION OF PARTICIPATORY GEOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION SYSTEM IN COMMUNITY DRIVEN DEVELOPMENT PROJECT IN EKITI STATE, NIGERIA 1. Introduction Spatial exclusion is an important component of infrastructural marginalisation and vulnerability. Within the facets of community development, it is increasingly understood that social infrastructural and services play a critical role in addressing exclusion and achieving the goals of poverty reduction, gender equality and sustainable development (Ayeni, 2017). However, an all-encompassing tool to capture the necessary developmental variables looks elusive. The conventional method of development featured a supply- driven approach where projects were poorly targeted with little or no involvement of the targeted benefiting communities in the identification of their basic needs (Ayeni and Odeyemi, 2015). It equally featured a nonparticipatory mode of delivering services to communities, low or total absence of community participation. Decision making under past developmental strategy was centralised at the top and imposed on the community. There was lack of community participation in the design, implementation and maintenance of projects/ programmes which resulted into misdirected funds, lack of maintenance and low sustainability (Ayeni & Odeyemi, 2015).The new strategy (CDD), is a bottom-up approach where project identification and decisions are taking by the people. CDD is demand - driven and entrust key decision making to the grassroots. There is high participatory mode of services delivery to communities, with the consequences of the introduction of community ownership of projects and participation in all levels of project planning and execution (Narayan, et al, 2000). This paper presents a merger of Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA), with Geographical Information System (GIS) to determining and locating community project that would help in reducing poverty and thus an elixir to community development. Carley and Christie (2000) defined sustainable participatory development as a continuing process of mediation among social, economic and environmental needs which results in positive socio-economic change that does not undermine the ecological and social systems upon which communities and society are dependent. Its successful implementation requires integrated policy, planning, and social learning processes; its political viability depends on the full support of the people it affects through their governments, their social institutions and their private activities. From this description, three fundamental tasks can be identified as: strategic and philosophical reflection, research and development to generate new knowledge and appropriate technologies and lastly, to develop institutional, regulatory and human networking capacity. It is evident that government working on its own alone will never resolve the problems and challenges of community development but partnership is required-government European Journal of Social Sciences Studies - Volume 2 │ Issue 7 │ 2017 307 Ayeni, Gabriel Olusegun, Odeyemi, Chris Adebola THE APPLICATION OF PARTICIPATORY GEOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION SYSTEM IN COMMUNITY DRIVEN DEVELOPMENT PROJECT IN EKITI STATE, NIGERIA working with business, the community and other civil society at all levels. Today, there is growing awareness that top-down approaches, whether led by the public or private sector, will always be weak compared to stronger, more sustainable, development initiatives that combine bottom-up community involvement with integrated and guided development approaches. Participatory tools, such as, participatory rural appraisal remain very valuable particularly for initiating participation processes, for community/neighbourhood design initiatives and for local confidence building (Miltin and Thompson, 1994). Although, some literatures raised concern about participation that many local people have the beliefs that the real decisions would have been taken before reaching them but the fact remains that development cannot be managed properly without devolving decision making to the community level as the centre may not be able to exert enough and effective control. Participatory models aim to empower the communities through providing help and support for them to control their development. Through this, every community is invited to become an active agent capable of influencing its own destiny. Participation must therefore be seen as a dynamic process where initiatives are taken by the local population, guided by the local population, and by experience in order to use the means and resources (institution and mechanisms) over which it can exercise effectiveness (Olawepo, 2009).The concept of Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) includes all methods that invite a community to share, and analyze its knowledge and life conditions within an action oriented research (Chamber, 1994). Such a research is automatically systemic as it focuses on the global ecosystem, biophysical, social and economic components. Early in PRA history, the spatial character of the information became crucial in all forms of analysis and/or decision. PRA methods integrated cartographic modelling tools and gave participatory geography a priority role in the integration of the local population s and the regional planet s perspectives into any resource management approach Craig, 2002 . PGIS is the integration of local knowledge and stakeholders' perspective in the GIS.Change International Conference 2005 defined PGIS as an emergent practice in its own right: developing out of participatory approaches to planning and spatial information and communication management. Participatory GIS implies making Geographic Information Technology (GIT), available to disadvantaged groups in society in order to enhance their capacity in generating, managing, analyzing and communicating spatial information. This practice could exert profound impacts on community empowerment, innovation and social change. Indeed, it places control of access and use of culturally sensitive spatial information in the hands of those who generated them and hence, protect traditional knowledge and wisdom from external exploitation. The following are the significance of the study: European Journal of Social Sciences Studies - Volume 2 │ Issue 7 │ 2017 308 Ayeni, Gabriel Olusegun, Odeyemi, Chris Adebola THE APPLICATION OF PARTICIPATORY GEOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION SYSTEM IN COMMUNITY DRIVEN DEVELOPMENT PROJECT IN EKITI STATE, NIGERIA  Since participatory GIS is a field of research that has not been fully focused in the country and especially, in the State, it would represent one of the pioneer  studies. GIS is a new technology, which can be adopted as a tool for analysing and integrating the spatial and non-spatial data in community development projects. This study derived from combining participation and GIS results and its powerful communication medium which bridge the gap between indigenous technical knowledge and scientific knowledge, thereby increase the capacity of local stakeholders and policy makers to interact, locally, with external agencies  like Donor Agencies and the government. Lack of spatial information in the community development remains one of the major problems for development practitioners and government officials and local planners. The government can therefore use the spatial distribution of resources and its usage pattern as acquired by PGIS process for proper participation and sustainability of assets created.  The following are the objectives of the study:  for community development.  planning. Employing participatory rural appraisal to identify and prioritize micro projects Merging participatory approach with geo- information system to spatial Using GIS tool (buffering) to locate the site of the project. Geographically, Ekiti State is found between longitudes 40 45 to 50 45 East of the Greenwich Meridian and latitudes 70 15i to 80 5i North of the Equator. The State shares boundaries with Kwara State in the North, Kogi state in the North - East, Osun State in the West and Ondo in the South and South- East (Adebayo, 1993). The community under study is Upperland Community about three kilometres to Ado - Ekiti, the State capital. Using Global Positioning System (GPS), it lies between 844950 and 846025 Eastings and 744750 and 746525 Northings. For viewing / downloading the full article, please access the following link: https://oapub.org/soc/index.php/EJSSS/article/view/242 European Journal of Social Sciences Studies - Volume 2 │ Issue 7 │ 2017 309