Influence of Uwezo Fund on Performance of Youth Agricultural Projects in Chuka Constituency, Tharaka-nithi County Kenya

Abstract

Agriculture is the backbone of the Kenyan economy and a major employer of the population. The youth are the majority in terms of population. In addition, they make up the majority of the literate quota as well as the unemployed population. There have been other affirmative action funds aimed at empowering the marginalized groups by providing interest free capital. An assortment of the affirmative funds have gone under analysis in regards to their determination forms and a discernment that there has been restricted execution because of democracy, the prerequisite of certain funds of group application process, which expects candidates to cooperate with others so as to be fit for loan program. This study aim was to access how Uwezo affirmative fund influences performance of youth agricultural projects in Chuka Kenya. The study focused on the following objectives. To assess how the requirements for affirmative fund influence the performance of youth agricultural projects in Chuka; to identify how capacity building of Youth fund influence youth agricultural performance in Chuka; to determine how cost of loan influence youth agricultural performance in Chuka and to establish in what ways utilization of funds influence youth agricultural performance in Chuka. The theoretical framework adapted for this study was derived from the theory of change. This research adopted a descriptive survey research design. There were 60 youth groups utilizing Uwezo funds for agricultural projects in Chuka. The Chairperson, treasurer and the secretary are the three group officials. The total target population comprised of 180 youths. The sample size was determined using Cochran (1963) formulae. Therefore the total sample size was 122 respondents. Data was collected using structured questionnaire to gather data from the respondents. Inferential and descriptive statistics was analysed using SPSS. The mean, standard deviation, frequencies and percentages from the respondent’s data was used to establish the relative importance and weight of each variable as well as the deviation of the variables from their means. All sets of data were analysed in form of tables, frequency, percentages and mean. Findings show that agricultural projects involved a variety of projects such as poultry, goat keeping, fish rearing, pig rearing, farming and cattle keeping. Many groups had a bank account, group savings, age limits and all the groups had members hailing from Chuka constituency. From findings the many youths got to know about Uwezo fund through advertisement. The study concludes that many groups have not collaborated with any institutions or organizations. The study also concludes that many groups are in the process of repaying and very few have completed loan repayment. The study further concludes that the six months grace period is sufficient before starting to repay the loan. The fact that the loan is interest free fund encourages borrowing for agricultural projects though the loaned amount is not enough to run all their agricultural activities. The study finally concludes that the groups engage in the economic activities they indicated during loan application and Uwezo officials visited them. The study recommends that Uwezo officials should offer more training to the groups by either providing agricultural extension officers for more yields to be realized. Uwezo fund should increase the amount they loan the youth groups as the amount loaned was found not to be sufficient in accomplishing their projects.