Abstract
This study investigated town unions and rural development in Ndiabor Ishieke Development Union of Ebonyi State. The specific objectives of the study are to determine the extent to which town union contributed in rural development and to find out the extent to which democratic governance improved the contributions of town unions to the construction and maintenance of rural roads in Ebonyi State. The elite theory is used as the theoretical frame work of analysis. The design adopted is the descriptive survey method. Out of the 338 questionnaires that were distributed to respondents only 320 was retuned. Therefore, the analysis was based on 320. It is pertinent to note that the data were compared with the objectives of the study and the formulated hypothesis. Based on the data analysis of this study it was observed that town union contributed in rural development and Democratic governance have improved the contributions of town unions to the construction and maintenance of rural roads in Ebonyi State. Based on the above findings the study made the following recommendations, government should provide periodic subvention to town unions to enable them have adequate fund for executing for the construction and maintenance of rural roads to the evacuation of agricultural products and movement of rural dwellers across the state and government should ensure that empowerment programmes such as agricultural and entrepreneurial loans are made accessible to the rural people in order to reduce the high incidence of poverty and improve the economy of rural communities.