One of the most intractable menaces that humanity has
been battling with several decades ago is poverty. There have
been a general consensus about the pervasiveness of poverty and
its grave consequences on the well-being of citizens of developing
(Nigeria) and least developed nations. Notwithstanding the
enormity of human, material and natural resources that nature
has endowed in the country which should have been effectively
and prudently channeled to alleviate the poverty situation of its
citizenry. The said resources have over the years not been
properly harnessed and or prudently utilized for societal
development. One of the ways to address this cankerworm is
economic diversification from crude oil reliance to new areas
such as volunteer tourism or voluntourism. This paper examine
efforts at poverty alleviation strategies by the government of
Nigeria and realized that the efforts has not yielded positive
results because the citizenry are still wallowing in abject poverty,
inadequate social infrastructure, insecurity, unemployment
amongst others as an offspring of poverty. This assertion
prompted this study and recommendations among other the
utilization of voluntourism that are characterized with financial
assistance, knowledge transfer, international connection,
integrated national endowment via restoration of environment
through skill acquisitions, education, cultural immersion, wealth
creation and equitable distribution and economic development.
We then recommend that volunteer tourism may be adopted as
the main antidote for sustainable poverty alleviation if the
opportunity is thoroughly harnessed.