CAPACITY BUILDING FOR COMMUNITY AWARENESS ON CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY OF OIL COMPANIES FOR SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT IN NIGERIA

Abstract

Exploration activities of Oil companies in most communities in Nigeria have negatively impacted on the environment where they are performing their business activities without adequate compensation to the community people. Such negative impacts include; gas flaring, oil spillages, noise and air pollution and so on and these affect the flora and fauna. Even whem compensations are paid, they are not commensurate to the damage and this result in communal conflicts, overheated and prolonged agitations, frustrations, loss of lives and properties and consequently unhealthy relationship between the oil companies and their host communities. This is basically as a result of community people possessing little or no awareness of the terms of the corporate social responsibility to be performed by all participating stakeholders especially the oil companies. This paper therefore examines how capacity building programmes can be employed as a means to equipping and increasing the awareness of community people with necessary information on corporate social responsibility of oil companies for sustainable community development in Nigeria. Some of such programmes include adult literacy education, extension education, conferences, seminars, talk shows, education consultancy just to mention a few. The paper therefore suggests that community members should be adequately informed on existing aspects of the corporate social responsibilities of oil companies operating in their locality and that these oil companies perform their corporate social responsibility to their host communities effectively in order to foster sustainable community development.