Determinants of Youth Participation in Community Development Projects: a Case of Homa-Bay County, Kenya

Abstract

Youth participation is a concept that has gained much of global attention which has seen many pieces of legislations and policy frameworks drafted to its effect. However, a number of reports show a low level of youth involvement in community development projects. In a bid to unravel this, many researchers have identified a raft of underlying factors precipitating this kind of phenomenon including political, socio-cultural environment, economic factors, and government policies. However, not much has been done on the irrigation scheme. Therefore, the research focused on the determinants of youth participation in community development projects in reference to the scheme. The objectives of this study was to establish how access to finance determines youth participation in Kimira-Oluch Smallholder Farm Improvement Project, to evaluate how socio-cultural environment determines youth participation in Kimira-Oluch Smallholder Farm Improvement Project, to establish the extent to which the level of education influences youth participation in Kimira-Oluch Smallholder Farm Improvement Project and to investigate how access to information influences youth participation in Kimira-Oluch Smallholder Farm Improvement Project in Homa- Bay Kenya. The study will be beneficial in influencing policy formulation and implementation on community development projects, assist project planners and implementers to enhance youth mainstreaming in all project implementation cycle in the community and to help facilitate the implementing partners; the NGO and donors to address the various challenges facing youth in development that threatens the sustainability of such initiatives and in capacity building plan. It would help the ministry of agriculture as a devolved function to address the specific challenges phasing out youth component in Kimira-Oluch Smallholders Farmers Improvement Project. The research employed a descriptive survey. A sample of 83 young farmers drawn from the project coverage that stretches in three sub-counties of Homa-bay County formed the respondents for this study, through simple random sampling. A questionnaire was the research instrument used for data collection. Data was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics; frequencies, ANOVA and t-test were employed with aid of Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 25. The study established a significant relationship between level of education and youth participation (p˂0.006), access to finance (p˂0.033), socio-cultural factors (p˂0.016) and access to information (p˂0.018). The study recommends that the government should finance programs for tertiary education to enhance hundred percent transmission of students to various level of higher institutions of learning and colleges for more to participate in community projects, the government should invigorate youth enterprise fund with a focus on enhancing access to credit for the individual youths rather than group approach with low interest rates, the government and the relevant stakeholders on gender ought to up efforts on gender mainstreaming to empower young women to participate by strict implementation of a third gender rule in entire project life, and proper consideration in mobilizing more youths to take active role in development projects by incorporating their interests in the advocacy processes.