Leadership Effectiveness and Foreign Assistance: Assessing Community-Based Infrastructure Sustainability in Southeastern Nigeria

Abstract

Foreign assistance remains a major facilitator of development in developing countries, but its effectiveness is largely conditioned by the quality of leadership that mediates implementation. Effective leadership and governance of foreign assistance within government-established agencies are mandated to achieve sustainable development of community infrastructure. Situated within the development administration and foreign assistance effectiveness discourse, this study investigates how effective leadership shapes the transition of foreign assistance toward achieving community-based infrastructure sustainability in Southeastern Nigeria through the activities of the Community and Social Development Agency (CSDA). This study is anchored on institutional theory. A cross-sectional survey research design was adopted. The study employed a multi-stage, stratified, and purposive sampling technique with a sample size of 398 respondents. Primary data were collected through a structured questionnaire. The data collected were coded and analysed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 27. Both descriptive and inferential statistical techniques were employed. Descriptive statistics include frequencies, percentages, means, and standard deviation, while multiple regression analysis was used to test the hypothesis. The study finds that leadership effectiveness and foreign assistance influence the sustainability of community-based infrastructure for water, electricity, and roads and that institutional weakness, corruption, lack of transparency, and accountability challenge and shape the outcomes of infrastructure projects, with R²=0.967, indicating that leadership effectiveness and foreign assistance account for 96.7% of the variance. The study contributes to development administration by emphasising the role that national and sub-national leaders, administrators, development agencies, local communities, and donor institutions and organisations should play in achieving community infrastructure development. This study recommends strengthening local leadership and institutional capacity, inclusive governance, and transparency to enhance the sustainability of community-based infrastructure. The policy implication would inform government and policymakers about the importance of effective leadership, institutional reforms, and capacity building as desiderata in enhancing foreign assistance administration to achieve sustainable community-based infrastructure development that will enhance the socioeconomic livelihoods of local communities in Nigeria.