Asian Journal of Agriculture and Rural Development, 3(5) 2013: 249-262 

 

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How well do NEEDS and NPIRD Hang together? – An Essay on Policy 

Coherence 

Ihebuzor, A. Noel 

UNICEF Tanzania, Oyster bay, PO Box 4076, Oyster Bay, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania 

Ukaejiofo, U. Rex 

Department of Rural Development & Management, China Agricultural University, Beijing 

 

 

 

Introduction
1
 

  

Nigeria is awash with sector development 

policies. Virtually every sector of national 

life – culture, arts, language, environment, 

education, agriculture, water and sanitation – 

has its own policy document. A rural 

development policy, The Nigeria Policy on 

Integrated Rural Development (NPIRD, for 

short) also exists. Standing at the apex of all 

of these, is the national Poverty Reduction 

Strategy Paper (PRSP), the National 

Economic Empowerment and Development 

Strategy (NEEDS, for short), which ideally, 

should integrate the broad strategic thrusts 

and orientations of these policies into one 

coherent national development policy. This 

study seeks to examine the level of 

                                                 

Corresponding author details: 

R.U. Ukaejiofo 

Email: rukaejiofo@gmail.com 

 

 

coherence that exists between this apex 

policy NEEDS and NPIRD, Nigeria rural 

development policy.  

 

The paper looks at how well these two 

policies (NEEDS and NPIRD) hang together.  

The specific study objectives are as follows:  

1. To examine the areas and extent of 

coherence between NEEDS and NPIRD; 

2.  To identify those instances, if any, 

where NEEDS and NPIRD diverge and 

attempt to explain why this has happened; 

and  

3. To draw out lessons for the policy 

coherence on the basis of the findings in 1 

and 2 above. 

 

Such a study into policy coherence is 

important since finding from it could lead to 

a better understanding of why and how 

policies align and the contributory factors to 

such a felicitous condition. In the case of 

divergence the study could also shed some 

light on the causes of such 

 

 

 
Asian Journal of Agriculture and Rural Development 

 
 
 

journal homepage: http://aessweb.com/journal-detail.php?id=5005  
 

mailto:rukaejiofo@gmail.com


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misalignment/incoherence and thus provide 

ome basis for corrective measures for 

achieving greater harmony, consistency and 

coherence across development policies. The 

essay is predicated on the framework that 

coherence and alignment lead to synergies 

and policy effectiveness. 

 

The essay is structured as follows: Section 1 

gives an overall study, presenting its aims 

and objectives. Section 2 presents a review 

of the relevant literature and will 

demonstrate theoretical support for policy 

coherence and a research 'gap' in the area.  

Section 3 introduces NEEDS and NIRPD 

and highlights their contexts and features. 

Section 4 then builds on this and reviews the 

two polices for coherence and alignment in 

the areas of goals, objectives, assumptions, 

strategies and implementation arrangements 

and discusses findings. Section 5, the 

concluding section brings together all the 

observations from the study and ends with 

recommendations on ways to improve policy 

coherence 

 

Literature Review 

 

Scholarship on the policy process is an area 

rich with debate and continues to grow given 

the centrality of public policy in shaping 

governance and affecting lives. The core 

elements of literature in this area centre on 

the following issues – how are policy 

decisions made (Smith & May, 1980), what 

factors impinge on and dominate the policy 

making process(Kingdom, 1984)., the role of 

constituencies and networks in policy 

formulation, the contexts in which policies 

are borrowed and/or  adapted to fit new 

environments or time periods, the factors 

that determine the implementation of 

policies (Mazmanian & Sabatier, 1999)  and 

finally criteria for evaluating policies 

(Parsons, 1995; Hudson & Lowe, 2004). 

Concepts such as incrementalism, 

rationalism, muddling through, models of 

policy formulation, agenda setting, policy 

implementation, policy coalition networks 

and constituencies, problem/policy and 

political streams continue to animate the 

debate and scholarship in this field. 

Noticeable by its relative neglect is the issue 

of policy coherence, an issue that one would 

have expected to engage the attention policy 

scholars given the need for different policies 

within and across sectors to cohere in the 

interest of policy effectiveness and 

efficiency. It is instructive to note that policy 

coherence is not mentioned in any of Parsons 

(1995), Hudson & Lowe (2004), Dolowitz & 

Marsh (2000), Rose (2001) nor in Sabatier 

(1991) where he sketches the essentials of a 

better understanding of the policy process. 

May et al. 2006 regret that this area of policy 

scholarship is under-theorized and has also 

received very little empirical attention. It 

may be useful to speculate why this is so. 

Can one infer from this relative neglect that 

policy coherence is not seen as a veritable 

problem for policy scholars? Or could this be 

due to conceptual and definitional 

difficulties that have delayed the take off of 

scholarship in this area? 

 

According to “May et al. (2006),   Policy 

coherence is an elusive concept that is easily 

understood but difficult to measure. In 



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common parlance, coherence implies that 

various policies go together because they 

share a set of ideas or objectives. This 

commonality in provisions and goals 

illustrates a high degree of coherence”. They 

however observe that “policy coherence is a 

relative term for which there can be differing 

degrees of the attribute” p382.  Matters are 

not helped by the polysemy in the term 

“policy coherence”. As Duraiappah & 

Bhardwaj (2007) observe, policy coherence 

is often “synonymous with terms such as 

coherent policy-making, policy co-

ordination, policy integration, holistic 

government and joined-up government 

coherence” pp2-3. However the definition 

below offers an initial opportunity for 

clarity. “Policy coherence for development is 

a process whereby a government, in pursuing 

its domestic policy objectives, makes an 

effort to design policies that, at a minimum, 

avoid a negative spill over which would 

adversely affect the development prospects 

of poor countries and, more positively, seek 

to maximize synergies” (Matthews and 

Giblin, 2006, p3). The OECD offers a 

working definition of coherence as efforts „to 

ensure that the objectives and results of a 

government‟s development policies are not 

undermined by other policies of that same 

government which impact on the 

development countries, and that these other 

policies support development objectives, 

where feasible‟  (EU 2006, p15). These two 

definitions of policy coherence have tended 

to see it from the point of view of external 

development assistance targeted at 

developing countries. Such a conception of 

coherence is too narrow. There is also the 

notion of coherence which focuses on how 

well policies within and across a sector are in 

harmony and are mutually reinforcing. 

Forster and Stokke (1999; 23) observe that 

“a coherent policy as one whose objectives, 

within a given policy framework, are 

internally consistent and attuned to 

objectives pursued in other policy 

frameworks of the system”.  Its objectives 

should also be in harmony with the goals, 

intentions or motives of other related 

policies. This definition of policy coherence 

stress synergies, mutual consistency, mutual 

reinforcement and minimization of negative 

spill-overs (GDI, 2002). May et al. (2006) 

underscores the important role of 

commonality of issues, interest and shared 

integrative properties in furthering policy 

coherence observing that it  is weakened 

when the variety of interests and issues 

which make up a policy area are dissonant 

and acting in opposing directions. 

Conversely coherence is more likely to occur 

when they act in harmonious fashions. As 

they also correctly note, consistency of 

policy goals can be a strong factor framing 

policy coherence at downstream levels. 

Policy incoherence has the reverse effect and 

its sources are rooted in four related causes 

(GDI, 2002). These are divergent political 

interests, different areas of responsibility at 

national and international levels, deficiencies 

in the organization of decision-making on 

policy, information deficits, and complexity 

of the development process. Sometimes too, 

policy incoherence is not always the product 

of a clash or divergence of interests. Rather 

it could also reflect failures to link policies 

during the stage of formulation or failure to 



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fully anticipate all potential policy outcomes 

at this stage (Muskens et al. 2007). Such a 

view suggests that incoherence could result 

from piece-meal incrementalism that did not 

have an eye on the larger societal and macro 

picture. The same document makes a 

distinction between intended incoherence 

and unintended incoherence. It observes that 

“unintentional incoherence is mainly an 

issue of imperfect management of the civil 

service or ignorance of other actors”. 

Solutions for this would be largely 

technocratic and would involve putting in 

place measures to share information and 

incentives for cooperation within 

departments (Muskens et al., 2007). They 

argue that intentional incoherence results 

basically from political decisions and solving 

problems of intentional policy incoherence 

would essentially involve political and not 

technocratic processes since the underlying 

political motives and interests of the various 

constituencies would need to recognized, 

carried on board and pragmatic trade-offs 

reached. Even when this last bit has been 

achieved, it would also be critical to get buy-

in from civil servants to minimize principal 

agent problems (Muskens et al. 2007). The 

interest of the present study is on 

unintentional coherence within national 

policies, that is, intra-governmental 

coherence, and is borne from the need to 

examine the degree of compatibility and 

consistency across policies within one 

country, given the beneficial effects of 

coherence which is now examined in the 

next paragraph. 

Arguments for policy coherence essentially 

appeal to the need for efficiency, 

effectiveness, credibility, quality outcomes 

and good governance. At the international 

level, the EU document (EU 2006) on policy 

coherence associates coherence with 

effectiveness and quality in international 

action. It argues that coherence leads to 

effectiveness by creating the conditions for 

maximizing the impact of development 

funds. Policy incoherence is associated with 

ineffectiveness (failure to achieve 

objectives), inefficiency (waste of scarce 

resources) and loss of policy credibility 

(GDI, 2002; EU, 2006; Duraiappah & 

Bhardwaj, 2007)). On this last issue, May et 

al. (2006) argue that lack of policy 

coherence sends confusing messages to 

potential policy targets and could therefore 

undermine policy politics and acceptability. 

It could also create tensions and provoke 

conflicts in beneficiary communities. The 

study on coherence between a peace building 

policy and anti-narcotics policies in one 

country by Rubin & Guaqueta (2007) brings 

out the tensions that policy incoherence 

could create.   The researchers identify the 

divergence between the goals of the two 

policies as a potential source of incoherence 

and potential conflict in policy outcomes. 

They note divergences in the objectives, 

sanctions and incentives of two policies – a 

peace building policy and crop eradication 

anti-narcotics policy – which are being 

concurrently in the same polity and point out 

the conflict and tensions that ensue as result 

of these divergences. As they illustrate, anti-

narcotics crop eradication immediately 

affects livelihoods, which then alienates the 

peasants which then has a perverse effect on 

the peace building policy. So here we have 



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an example of policies producing 

contradictory effects because of incoherence.  

 

Given the recognized beneficial effects of 

policy coherence, some suggestions have 

been put forward on ways to maximize this, 

even where it is recognized that total policy 

coherence is an ideal that is difficult to 

attain. The following have been identified as 

important for ensuring policy coherence -   

– Strong political commitment to coherence 

on the part of government(s), with leadership 

and clearly defined policy objectives, 

priorities and criteria for assessing progress. 

– Institutional coordination, through an 

adequate institutional architecture, 

transparency and flexibility, including rapid 

adaptation to a changing environment, early 

warning of any incoherence, mechanisms for 

dialogue and resolving disputes and an 

administrative culture that promotes inter-

sector cooperation and systematic dialogue 

among different political communities; and 

finally,  

–  Adequate analytical capacity and effective 

systems for generating, transmitting and 

processing relevant information. (EU, 

2006:17). 

 

In summary, the literature reveals the 

following as being central to policy 

coherence - consistency, complementarities, 

coordination, congruence, compatibility, 

alignment, improved focus, interdependence 

and reduction of waste.  Policy incoherence 

is associated with conflict, tensions, 

antagonisms, interference and contradictions 

which are subtractive and divisive in effect 

(EU, 2006; GDI, 2002). In the next sections, 

we shall be examining two policy documents 

in Nigeria to see to what extent some of the 

issues raised in this section would apply to 

them. 

 

NEEDS and NPIRD: context and 

intentions 

 

NEEDS, as stated earlier, is Nigeria‟s PRSP. 

Standard orthodoxy on PRSPs has it that 

they are country driven; involve broad 

participation, results oriented, growth 

focused, pro-poor, and comprehensive in 

scope and addressing all the multiple 

ramifications and causes of poverty and long 

term in focus (Bretton Woods Project, 2003). 

These stated qualities notwithstanding, it is 

now common knowledge that most PRSPs 

are driven by the need to meet one of the 

conditionality for accessing external funding 

assistance. The process of external validation 

and approval of any PRSP by the World 

Bank and International Monetary Fund (the 

joint staff assessment), and the insistence of 

juridical and macro-economic reforms 

reinforces the view of PRSPs as indeed more 

externally guided and outward looking in 

intended readership than internal. When 

closely examined most PRSPs, NEEDS 

inclusive, betray a tendency towards macro-

economic reforms of a neo-liberal bent with 

the standard prescription for the progressive 

reduction of the role of the state, the 

supremacy of market principles, an 

enlargement of the leadership role for the 

private sector and trade liberalization.  

Incidentally, recent developments on the 

global scene call sharply to question the 

continued soundness of these principles. 



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NEEDS was designed with extensive support 

and guidance by WB and IMF even as it also 

involved a broad range of national 

stakeholders. NEEDS was launched on May 

29, 2004 (Akpobasah, 2004). The objective 

of NEEDS is to enable Nigeria achieve a 

turn around and grow a broad based market 

oriented economy that is private sector - led 

and in which people can be empowered so 

that they can, as a minimum, afford the basic 

needs of life. It is a pro-poor development 

strategy focusing on economic 

empowerment, gainful employment and the 

provision of social safety nets for vulnerable 

groups. The fixing of these objectives was 

influenced by an analysis of the obstacles to 

national development. The following 

obstacles were identified -  inequities in life 

chances and opportunities for prosperity, the 

overburdening role and hence inefficiencies 

of previous administrations, corruption in the 

public service and the hostility of the 

Nigerian environment to private enterprise 

identified as the creator of wealth and job 

creation. NEEDS represents a national 

reform agenda that seeks to eliminate 

poverty and inequality, revitalize the public 

service along the lines of new public 

management, address governance failures 

and midwife the emergence of sound 

economic management and the thriving of an 

internationally  competitive private sector. 

The next paragraph looks at the rural 

economy with a view to pointing its salient 

features and how these influenced the design 

of the NPIRD. 

 

The Nigeria rural landscape is characterized 

by high levels of poverty, dominance of 

subsistence farming and vulnerability to 

economic shocks. Nigeria ranks very low on 

most indicators of human development. 

About 70% of Nigerians live below the 

poverty line, per capital GNI is below $300, 

and urbanization is uncontrolled. Geographic 

disparities exist in access to basic services 

with 85% of the extreme poor living in rural 

areas. The marginalization of rural areas, 

characterized by the absence of 

infrastructure, low skill labour force, absence 

of industries, absence of government, has 

had an inhibiting effect on national 

development with severe negative 

externalities on urban areas, a point that De 

Janvry et al. 1999) underscore for rural areas 

in general.  The progressive pauperization of 

the rural populace as a result of years of 

neglect has retarded holistic and inclusive 

national development. NPIRD was 

conceived to address such imbalances and 

catalyze coordinated and sustainable 

development of rural areas. Launched in 

2001, NPIRD represents an attempt to break 

away from earlier rural development 

initiatives that were mainly cantered around 

government structures either in the form of 

River Basin Authorities or Government 

established parastatals such as the 

Directorate of Food, Road and Rural 

Infrastructure (DFRRI). It was written up 

with the support of the World Bank, DFID 

and other development partners. The policy 

recognizes the underlying causes and 

dimensions of rural poverty and stresses the 

critical inter-connections between the social 

sector, infrastructure, governance, and the 

farm and non-farm economy. The overall 

objectives of the Policy are: developing the 



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rural areas, raising the quality of life of the 

rural people, alleviating rural poverty and 

using rural development to lay a solid 

foundation for national development.  The 

intended outcomes include national food 

security, income generation and alleviation 

of rural poverty. It seeks to mainstream rural 

dwellers into national development and 

makes a special case for the right level of 

infrastructure investment to open rural areas 

(Nigeria National report, 2006). The policy 

goes beyond a focus on agriculture and 

recognizes the need for some rural 

industrialization and other productive 

activities to transform the rural sector using a 

blend of private sector led initiatives, 

participatory approaches and community 

mobilization.  

 

The examination of context and assumptions 

allows an initial identification of some 

commonalities and convergence in 

assumptions and approaches between 

NEEDS and NPIRD. Both seek to move 

away from a monoculture, (oil and mineral 

resources for NEEDS: agriculture for 

NPIRD). Both recognize the critical role that 

the private sector can play in development. 

Finally, both recognize participatory and 

broad based involvement as sine qua non for 

any sustainable development.  The 

recommendation in the Rural development 

sector strategy (RDSS) the accompanying 

document to NPIRD brings out these 

commonalities and convergence of 

philosophy and strategies when it lists the 

qualities of  the rural development strategy 

as follows – non-interventionist, consistent, 

participatory, sustainable, equitable but with 

limited role for the state (FMARD, 2001), 

qualities which also define NEEDS. The 

next section carries the analysis further by 

looking at the goals and policy thrusts of 

NEEDS and NPIRD in more detail. 

 

Objectives 

The Goals of NEEDS are wealth creation, 

employment generation, poverty reduction 

and value re-orientation. NEEDS supports 

the following policy thrusts: Sustain a rapid, 

broad-based GDP growth rate outside of the 

oil sector that is consistent with poverty 

reduction, employment generation, and a 

sustainable environment, diversify the 

production structure away from oil and 

mineral resources, make the productive 

sector internationally competitive, 

systematically reduce the role of government 

in the direct production of goods, and 

strengthen its facilitating and regulatory 

functions. The overall aims are sustained 

growth rates, employment generation, and 

wealth creation, diversification of the 

economy and poverty reduction. Before 

NEEDS, the Nigerian economy had been 

excessively dependent on the oil industry 

with the attendant neglect of other sectors, 

especially agriculture. This neglect of 

agriculture led to its demise and the 

attendant pauperization and the 

underdevelopment of the rural economy. By 

thus arguing for a diversification of the 

economic base and recognizing the vital 

contribution of agriculture to national 

development, NEEDS agrees with and 

reinforces provisions in the rural 

development policy. In line with the then 

dominant economic ideology, NEEDS 



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emphasizes a systematic reduction in the role 

of Government in the direct production of 

goods and services stressing rather its 

regulatory role. NEEDS also stresses 

“macroeconomic viability and policy 

consistency”, the control of inflation, the 

stabilization of the exchange rate the 

adoption of a fiscal policy characterized by 

prudence and discipline (Akpobasah, 2004). 

NPIRD on the other hand focuses on Poverty 

reduction, mobilization and empowerment of 

rural population to create wealth, expansion 

of productive base of rural economy, 

provision of support to extension services, 

establishment of network of cottage and rural 

industries , improvement of human 

resources, mass literacy , formation and 

management of cooperatives, strengthening 

of capacity for autonomous democratic 

development, improvement in the quality of 

life of rural dwellers, create network for rural  

marketing, facilitate power and social 

relations and establish worthy life. 

 

Priority Areas  

This section examines the priority areas for 

NEEDS and NPIRD. NEEDS identifies 

some priority areas for intervention. These 

are - Job creation, provide affordable 

housing, improve health care, strengthen the 

skill base, protect the vulnerable, promote 

peace and security, improve infrastructure, 

promote industry, improve agriculture, rural 

communities (water, rural roads, electricity, 

health facilities and communication) 

instruments for targeting the vulnerable 

include access to credit, labour intensive 

public works, affirmative action for women 

as well as education and entrepreneurial 

development for youths. NPIRD for its part 

focuses on four priority areas of intervention 

in rural development. These are - Promotion 

of rural productive activities, support human 

resources development, enhancement of 

enabling rural infrastructure, (too much 

government involvements), special programs 

for target groups and rural community 

organizations. A brief explanation of the 

intention of each of these four areas follows. 

Enhancement of enabling rural 

infrastructure: This is an initiative designed 

to open rural areas and to create the 

necessary environments that could attract 

industries. Focus is on building the much 

needed infrastructure such as access roads, 

rural water supply, housing, 

telecommunications infrastructure and 

electrification as ways to stimulate growth 

and also to make the rural areas more 

attractive to industries and to populations 

and thus tem the urban migration. The Rural 

Access and Mobility Project, with the overall 

objective of providing all season access to 

farming and fishing communities, is part of 

this initiative. A related component is the 

training of rural dwellers on the maintenance 

of the roads/riverine access and developing 

entrepreneurship of rural dwellers for 

income generation and poverty reduction. 

Promotion of Rural Productive Activities: 

Here the policy plans to support micro 

finance and business development initiatives 

in the rural areas as way to promoting 

employment creation and wealth generation 

in rural areas. Activities include agriculture, 

fisheries, animal husbandry and forestry; 

Supportive Human Resource Development: 

This activity area combines education, mass 



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literacy, awareness creation, sensitization 

and information sharing aimed at rural 

dwellers. It also covers interventions in the 

areas of culture and social development, 

health, communication and extension 

services. 

 

Special programs for Target Groups: This 

last priority area appears to be designed to 

capture special populations who may have 

been missed out in development 

interventions spelt out under the first three 

first priority areas. It could thus be seen as an 

effective way to ensure that NPIRD 

recognizes and makes provisions for 

inclusiveness in its developmental projects 

with a specific focus on rural populations 

with specific needs. Included in this group 

are an unwieldy assemblage of women, 

youth, children, elderly retired, handicapped, 

emergencies and nature disaster (sic), 

disadvantaged area and border areas 

including beggars and destitute. The 

intention is to bring special interventions to 

respond to the special needs of the most 

marginalized and deprived of rural areas. 

 

Each of these areas has its policy statement, 

objectives and strategies but this section of 

NPIRD suffers from the weakness that not 

much effort is put to make more visible the 

organic coherence across these four priority 

areas. Reference is made to extant policies 

(national health policy, national population 

policy, national cultural policy, social 

development policy) with the assurance that 

the NPIRD will be in harmony with these 

extant policies.  The interventions in these 

four priority areas strongly cohere with the 

activities suggested in the agriculture and 

rural development component of NEEDS, 

unpacking these in more detail, and this is a 

plus for coherence. However, it needs to be 

indicated that most of the activities in 

NPIRD „s four priority areas would involve a 

lot of government led initiatives, an 

observation that then raises questions on the 

degree of internal consistency and coherence 

of NPIRD‟s verbalized strategic choice of 

private sector involvement in its 

implementation. By implication too, this 

strong role of government in the 

implementation of NPIRD is going to have 

some wash-back effect on the coherence 

integrity of NEEDS in the areas of private 

sector involvement in NEEDS‟ roll out. 

Perhaps this inconsistency reflects the 

constant trade-offs that development 

interventions involve.  Governments even 

when they subscribe to an increasing non-

interventionist neo-liberal ideology in 

development may, for the purposes of equity, 

be obliged intervene in some sectors, rural 

development in particular to correct for 

market failures.  Given the paucity of 

infrastructure in rural areas and the high cost 

of investment in rural areas and thus the 

economic unattractiveness of rural settings 

for most private sector enterprises, some 

special measures to compensate for market 

failures may necessary in rural development 

strategies in the short and medium terms. It 

is these considerations that could justify the 

observed departure from private sector 

leadership in the recommended 

implementation measures in NPIRD. As we 

shall demonstrate further in the write-up, this 

rhetoric for private sector market leadership 



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is not reflected in the implementation 

arrangements suggested for NPIRD in 

RDSS. 

 

Strategies, Implementation 

Arrangements, Approaches and Tools 

 

NEEDS proposes the following steps to 

achieve its goals  

i. Privatize, deregulate, and liberalize 

key sectors of the economy.  

ii. Coordinate national sectoral 

development strategies for 

agriculture, industry, (especially 

small and medium-size enterprises), 

and services (especially tourism). 

iii. Develop infrastructure, especially 

electricity, transport, and water.  

iv. Address the problems of financing 

the real sector, and mobilize long-

term savings and investment.  

v. Create effective regulatory regimes 

that include environmental 

standards.  

vi. Target programs to promote private 

sector growth and development.” 

(NEEDS, 2004, p16) 

 

NEEDS also identifies opportunities, 

instruments and actions to meet the needs of 

the rural poor. These include access to credit 

and land; participation in decision making; 

agricultural extension services; improved 

seeds, farm inputs and implements. 

Recognizing agriculture as a neglected 

source of national wealth since the discovery 

and exploitation of Nigeria‟s vast oil 

resources, NEEDS lays emphasis on the 

cultivation of improved, higher yielding crop 

varieties and the provision of extra support 

to agricultural research and training as a 

means to give fresh fillip to this sector so 

vital for rural development. Schemes to 

encourage credit to rural farmers, strengthen 

traditional thrift and savings schemes and to 

supply and distribute agricultural inputs, 

such as seeds, improved yielding food 

varieties, fertilizers and machinery are also 

part of NEEDS implementation 

arrangements. NEEDS also envisages the 

provision of basic services such as water, 

rural roads, electricity, schools, health 

facilities and communications to rural 

communities and indicates that 4% of the 

national budget will be earmarked to the 

agriculture and rural development sector. 

The NPIRD on the other hand suggests the 

following implementation arrangements – a 

Community Driven Development approach 

and participatory rationalization and re-

alignment of public sector rural development 

institutions, an emphasis on investments by 

the private sector, collaborative efforts 

between government and other stakeholders, 

promotion of even development. Interesting 

areas of convergence and coherence are there 

to see. The first area of convergence and 

coherence is the fact that in NEEDS, there is 

a clear policy provision to offer farmers 

improved irrigation, machinery, crop 

varieties all with the intention of 

implementing an integrated rural 

development program to stem the flow of 

migration from rural to urban areas. All of 

these are also in alignment with the 

provisions in the NPIRD. One can then 

correctly say that NEEDS and NPIRD 

clearly converge and overlap a good example 



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of coherence and a felicitous condition for 

synergies in policy implementation. A joint 

WB/IMA evaluation notes that NEEDS has 

prompted several measures to improve the 

performance of the agricultural sector, 

launch community based rural development 

projects aimed at improving agricultural 

productivity and efforts to improve rural 

finance (Ezekwesili et al., 2007).  Both also 

converge on the recognition of the role of the 

private sector, even though such a 

prescription may not too realistic for a rural 

policy given the realities of market failure. 

Investments in rural areas are cost intensive 

and such costs may be disincentives to 

private sector operators except there are 

some government incentives and government 

financed investment infrastructure. (The 

question is the degree and compatibility of 

such incentives with a market led ethos.) Yet 

ignoring rural development imposes negative 

externalities on national development and 

urban settings. Incidentally, RDSS identifies 

three key issue areas in NPIRD – Policy and 

Institutional reform, investment at federal, 

State LGA and community levels and 

investments at sub-sector levels and 

indicates focal points, actors and funding 

sources for each of these. One notes that the 

private sector gets scant mention and is 

assigned very minimal roles in this vital area 

of implementation. This also raises issues of 

internal coherence of NPIRD itself by 

reference to the critical role it had earlier 

claimed to assign to the private sector and by 

implication on the mismatch between the 

implementation strategies and the preferred 

implementation modality for NEEDS. One 

notices a stronger role for government than 

the private sector driver rhetoric would have 

suggested. Here realism would appear to 

have triumphed over loyalty to a popular 

market ideology. 

 

Recommendations & Conclusions 

 

We have seen that coherence in policies can 

be at the level of objectives, targets, and 

strategies. It can also be seen in the degree of 

coherence which can be gauged by the extent 

to which one policy reinforces the other, 

unpacks its provisions, enhances and extends 

its orientations. We have seen in respect of 

NEEDS and NPIRD that there are interesting 

coherences between these two deriving from 

the fact that they are targeted at overlapping 

constituencies, and pursue mutually 

reinforcing goals and objectives. This is so 

since the rural is but a sub set of the larger 

national set.  In a way therefore, NPIRD is 

NEEDS targeted at rural areas with the aim 

of promoting their development. (PRSPs are 

national and cut across all sectors. Rural 

development policies are more focused but 

also inherently multi-sectoral, even where 

for reasons of competitive advantage, they 

tend to dwell more on reviving and 

revitalizing sustainable agriculture). The 

happy conditions of coherence we have 

noted in policy thrusts, goals and 

implementation arrangements mean that 

NEEDS and NPIRD create conditions for 

their reciprocal success. Hanging together 

implies mutual reinforcement and we see 

that on the areas of objectives, policy thrusts 

and implementation arrangements NEEDS 

tends to complement NPIRD in inclusive and 

additive ways. The explanations for the 



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260 

 

observed coherence must be sought in the 

fact that both documents were written by 

persons drawn from broadly identical policy 

constituencies and networks and were also 

produced around the same time period, two 

conditions which make for coherence. These 

findings agree with the earlier views on 

shared objectives, interests as determinant of 

policy coherence (Muskens et al., 2007; 

Forster and Stokke, 1999) By implication, 

we are saying that when there is a separation 

in time of formulation or when policies are 

drawn up by persons from different policy 

constituencies, policy incoherence may arise 

because issues and agendas may have 

evolved, or that perceptions of issues may be 

different or that different tools and 

instruments for policy analysis may have 

become available. It is also important to 

point out the role of dominant ideologies 

held by influential external players in 

ensuring policy coherence. We see this 

clearly in NEEDS and NPIRD which 

received considerable steer and guidance 

from the WB, CIDA, USAID and DFID, all 

of which agencies subscribe in the main to a 

neo-liberal economic philosophy and this 

economic view is reflected in both policies 

even where its market driven ideology may 

not exactly be the most appropriate for a 

rural development policy areas in the current 

context of Nigeria. This observation also 

brings up the issue of external influence in 

policy formulation and the dangers of 

uncritical policy transfers. This last 

observation notwithstanding, the 

examinations of NEEDS and NPIRD have 

revealed interesting areas of coherence and 

some of the reasons for it. The observed 

coherences  inspire hope and confidence that 

appropriate implementation structures will 

be put in place and that all stakeholders at 

the federal, state and local government levels 

will work harmoniously together to deliver 

the results envisaged in these policy 

instruments. The hope is therefore is that 

coherence and harmony at policy level will 

be matched by the same at the 

implementation level. 

 

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