| dc.description.abstract | According to Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, youth aged between 15-30 years number about 14 million and accounts for more than 36% of the Kenyan population. The youth population is projected to increase to 17 million and 24 million by the 2012 and 2017 respectively. Over 500,000 youth graduate from tertiary institutions annually, 92% of whom have formal education but no vocational skills training. The challenge facing Kenya today therefore is to ensure that this large section of the society is engaged in productive activities that will improve their well-being and contribute to the productivity of this country.
Unemployment is the single most significant challenge facing the young people today. For a developing country like Kenya, lack of adequate opportunities among the youth is a grave wastage of national resources due to high opportunity cost which impacts negatively on socioeconomic development, in addition it creates dependency syndrome, vicious cycle of poverty, social upheavals such-as insecurity and risky behaviours, economic and political malpractices and lack of dignity and self esteem among the youth.
Our economic growth has operated for a long time below a paltry 2.5% annually. This stagnation has meant that the slow growth cannot generate adequate jobs to absorb the hundreds of thousands of youths entering the job market annually. As such young people have no option but seek alternative ways to create jobs both for themselves and others through enterprise based initiatives. This has been seen as an alternative avenue to substantially reduce pressure on the already-strained state resources.
The aim of this study therefore, was to examine how effectively the fund had been implemented and managed. The study documented best practices in the utilization of the fund, attempted to point out lessons learned as well as the strengths, general weaknesses and areas of concern with a view to strengthening the management and the subsequent utilization of the fund.
The study sought to bring out issues of local level capacities, deep-seated management and fund uptake challenges and examine efficiency in the utilization of these funds with a view of improvement. The study entailed a descriptive survey in which data was collected using questionnaires with both open-ended and close-ended questions to allow in-depth understanding of the fund dynamics. The data collected was analysed using descriptive statistics and multiple regressions.
Results were presented in percentage frequencies and cross tabulations. To increase the reliability of the data collected, the research utilized a test- retest technique in which the data collection instruments were administered twice to the same subjects. Validation of the data was done using content-related validity. The study results obtained from this study will be very useful to the Government of Kenya, the Youth Enterprise Development Fund management board, rural development and microcredit agencies, entrepreneurs and intermediary organizations who will use it to improve the situation of unemployment and youth enterprise development in the country.
From this study I recommend that future programmes should inculcate training before funding for business ventures. Capacity building and other non financial services ranging from literacy classes, developmental leadership, financial management, community development and market-based business development services will greatly help the young entrepreneurs. I recommend that such funding programmes should be tailored on the Grameen Model. | en_US |
