Poverty is an epidemic ailment in most third world countries to which Nigeria belongs in terms of development. Many
programmes have however been put in place to curb poverty, yet it is a far cry for Nigerians to live above poverty line in a
nation replete with abundant human and natural resources. Poverty alleviation, income re-distribution and rural development
are socio-economic models being adopted by many countries to reduce poverty in their respective communities. In her
efforts to reduce poverty in the rural areas, the Federal Government of Nigeria introduced many programmes. To mention
a few; Directorate of Food, Roads, and Rural Infrastructure (DFRRI); National Directorate of Employment (NDE);
Microfinance banks, to provide credit to micro entrepreneurs and Better Life Programme (BLP). However, the objective of
this paper was to examine these three economic models designed to alleviate the sufferings of the poor and to research into
why the high level of poverty remains unabated in Nigeria despite the Federal Government’s efforts as enumerated above.
The study discovered that most of the Government programmes meant well for the rural communities, but implementation
strategies are usually constrained by corruption on the part of the government officials. Therefore this paper concludes that
serious monitoring techniques should be built into all the Implementation Strategies for effective project execution,
transparency and accountability.