Ecotourism for transformative and youth development in sub-Saharan Africa: the role of corporate social responsibility in Nigeria’s oil host communities

ABSTRACT

We examine the impact of multinational oil companies’ (MOCs) corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives on enabling youth participation in ecotourism development in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. Results from the use of average treatment test of a combined propensity score matching and logit model indicate a significant difference between youths in MOCs’ CSR global memorandum of understanding (GMoU) households and non-GMoU households in the four parameters measured: availability of finance (3.76), access to adequate training (5.91), direct patronage (18.97), and economic capability of the youths (8.2). It shows that opportunities to supply products and services to the tourism sector can help ensure a sustainable market and increase incomes and other revenues in local communities driven from ecotourism-related activities, while minimizing economic leakages. This suggests that pro-youth GMoU ecotourism projects of MOCs have the potential to play in the formation of linkages to help promote local economic development through job creation and business opportunities. It implies that a younger generation can help to promote economic diversification and contribute to job creation and enterprise development, while helping to address underdevelopment in remoe areas and intractable environmental challenges of sub-Saharan Africa.

KEYWORDS:

• Ecotourism development
• environmental justice
• corporate social responsibility
• Niger Delta youth
• sub-Saharan Africa

Acknowledgement

The author(s) are indebted to the editor and reviewers for constructive comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Age = Age of the respondent household head measured in number of years, Sex = the natural sex of the respondent (male or female), PriOcc = primary (major) occupation of the Household head, Polaff = political affiliation of the Household head measured with a dummy (member of ruling party = 1 otherwise = 0); Edu = highest educational attainment of the respondent, measured in number of years spent in formal education, AY = annual income of the respondent measured in Nigeria naira (NGN), MS = marital status, HHCom = income of other household members measured in NGN, Location = location of the respondent (urban  = 1 rural = 0) and GMou perception = how the respondent household heads see the cluster development board.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Joseph Ikechukwu Uduji

Joseph Ikechukwu Uduji holds PhD (marketing), PhD (public administration), MSc (marketing), MSc (public relations), MBA (business administration), and MPA (public administration) and is currently the head, Department of Marketing, University of Nigeria, Nsukka. Whilst he lectures business and development courses at the University of Nigeria, he is also a visiting professor at the Catholic University of Cameroon, Bamenda. His current research interests include social justice, social responsibility, and inequality nexus in developing countries.

Elda Nduka Okolo-Obasi

Elda Nduka Okolo-Obasi holds BSc (agricultural economics) from the Federal University of Technology Owerri and MSc (development studies) from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka and Enugu Campuses. He is a doctoral student and research fellow at the Institute for Development Studies, University of Nigeria. He is also a research fellow at the Development Strategy Centre (A private Think Tank based in) Enugu, Nigeria. His current research interests include economic and social impact evaluation of policies and projects of the public and private sectors in developing countries.