Quality of Life among Rural Nigerian Women: The Role of Information

The quality of life of people in developing countries including Nigeria is not near the expected standard. This is especially so with women living in the rural areas whose lives are characterized by poor income, poverty, hunger, diseases as well as lack of potable water, good shelter and access to medical attention. This is due to the fact that these women do not have access to valuable information and may not make use of available information which could help them meet the challenges of daily living. This study, therefore, investigated the extent to which information accessibility and use could improve the quality of life of rural women in Nigeria. Focus Group Discussions was used to gather data from 100 rural women from ten local government areas in Ekiti state, Nigeria. The choice of the state was informed for two reasons. Firstly, the state is one of those with the largest concentration of mainly rural and semi-rural towns in Nigeria. Secondly, collaborative report of the Centre for Development and Action Research and Nigerian Institute of Social and Economic Research shows that the World Bank once selected Ekiti State for pilot activities of its Ekiti State Community Based Poverty Reduction Agency (ESCOBPRA) and reported the state as having the highest poverty level in the Southwest Region of Nigeria. Badly affected by this state of affair are rural women living in the state. The paper shows the quality of life of the rural women living in the state, their information needs, sources of information they found accessible to use to improve their quality of life and factors militating against access and use of information. It shows ways to remedy the situation by recommending the need to recognize access to use of information as important inputs in improving the quality of life of rural women in Ekiti state, Nigeria