Social Innovation for Sustainability: The Case of Oil Producing Communities in the Niger Delta region

Abstract

This study demonstrates how social innovation may engender development as well as peace in deep-rooted poverty and conflict regions in the Niger Delta context. By means of a qualitative study involving oil producing communities in the Niger Delta, this study identifies the dynamics, relevant actors and factors that foster social innovation, creating particular socio-economic outcomes, and contributes to the role of institutions in this context. Our findings suggest that active stakeholders’ engagement, facilitation and contributions from key actors significantly influences the quality of economic and social outcomes, but not necessarily environmental outcomes. This allows us to advance the theory on social innovation by analyzing the mechanisms through which social intervention processes may alter the lives of ordinary community members in areas where social and economic interventions are seriously required.

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“…Worthy of mention is the fact that findings in this study also indicate that the activities of youth militancy within communities of the Niger Delta region of Nigeria have recorded significant adverse effects on the successes made by Chevron and SPDC in the area of project execution and development of host communities in the area. This position is in line with the arguments of prior studies (Ogbemi & Imide, 2008;Idemudia, 2014;Amabipi, 2016;Ismail, Ilu & Galadima, 2018;Omobhude & Chen, 2019;Ogbemi, 2020;Gbali, Weli & Mmom, 2021) who have at different times reiterated that the developmental initiatives of oil companies within the region of Niger-Delta have been marred by the negative consequences of the activities of youth militia in the area. In line with the above positions, Hypothesis I of this study was tested and the result in Table 4.4 summarizes the outcome regarding the effect which the level of awareness and knowledge of Chevron Regional Development Councils (RDCs) and Shell Cluster Development Boards (CDBs) may have on the participation in projects by different social strata within host communities of oil companies in Nigeria.…”

“…Notwithstanding the poor turnout and/or low level of participation by residents of host communities, it was however observed that the general view of the majority of the respondents is that the decisions made by Chevron and SPDC on the nature and type of projects to be executed and/or executed through RDCs and CDBs respectively were largely influenced by governments and their respective officials. The above findings are not significantly different from the conclusions of prior research (Idemudia, 2007;Idemudia, 2014;Amabipi, 2016;Omobhude & Chen, 2019).…”

Niger Delta Indigenes’ Perception of Community Participation in The Development Communication Strategies and Practices of Oil Companies in Nigeria

“…Notwithstanding the poor turnout and/or low level of participation by residents of host communities, it was however observed that the general view of the majority of the respondents is that the decisions made by Chevron and SPDC on the nature and type of projects to be executed and/or executed through RDCs and CDBs respectively were largely influenced by governments and their respective officials. The above findings are not significantly different from the conclusions of prior research (Idemudia, 2007;Idemudia, 2014;Amabipi, 2016;Omobhude & Chen, 2019).…”

Local Productive Systems’ Transitions to Industry 4.0+

“…Despite referring foremost to advanced economies and to the EU institutional context, this LPS transition framework might be adapted and expanded to contexts and case studies in new industrialized and developing economies [43,59,60,65], also considering initial states of generally low degrees in local drivers. In those regions and countries, the local trade-offs between smart goals and the other goals of sustainability might be more extreme, describing transition paths whose positive outcomes depend on narrower sets of place-based and upper-level-specific conditions.…”