Investigating the empirical relationship between government intervention programs and poverty alleviation: a case of Nigeria

Purpose - Although the literature has shown that government intervention programs on poverty alleviation have now become a common practice and accepted policy framework in tackling the menace of poverty which has remained the major challenge to all leaders around the globe. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of (conditional cash transfer, youth empowerment and microcredit scheme) on poverty alleviation in Niger state-Nigeria. Design/methodology/approach - The hypotheses of the study were tested using personally administered questionnaires survey method; 442 valid and useable questionnaires were obtained for the study, while PLS-SEM path modeling was adopted to evaluate the statistical relationship between those three programs and poverty alleviation. According to the statistical result of the study, the research constructs have a satisfactory convergent and discriminant validity. Therefore the study has established a strong positive relationship between government intervention programs and poverty alleviation. The socioeconomic assessment of the respondents further justified the above assumption. Findings - Also, the research findings of this study may found to be beneficial to the government, international organization, researchers particularly those who are conducting research on poverty reduction programs. Research limitations/implications - The study used the perceptions of the beneficiaries of those programs in nine selected local government areas within the three senatorial districts in Niger state-Nigeria. Originality/value - Similarly, the findings of the study would offer some meaningful contribution to the body of knowledge on studies related to poverty alleviation programs like conditional cash transfer, youth empowerment and microcredit scheme, where expert in that field would explore the advantage of these findings by utilizing the impacts of those programs on the beneficiaries for policy framework.