Influence of Entrepreneurship Skills on Sustainability of Youth Enterprise Development Funded Projects in the Slums of Nairobi: the Case of Kawangware Slum

Abstract

With the establishment of Youth Enterprise Development Fund in 2006 in Kenya, Several Youth income generating projects have been implemented in the country but with low success rate. In order to enhance sustainability of youth projects and businesses, the fund identified entrepreneurship as a way of enabling the youth acquire the much needed skills. Despite the fact that there has been a lot of funding from the Kenya Government through the Youth Enterprise Development Fund, there is a significant disparity between the implemented youth projects and the sustainable or active ones. Therefore, purpose of this study was to establish the influence of entrepreneurship skills on sustainability of youth development projects in the Kawangware Slum. The objectives of the study were to assess how entrepreneurship training provided under the National Youth Enterprise Development Programme, training in project planning, financial literacy, market access and resource mobilisation influence sustainability of youth development projects in Kawangware slums, Nairobi. The study is significant as it will provide information to entrepreneurship curriculum developers that will inform the designing of the curriculum to include aspects that enhance project sustainability. The findings will also inform donor organizations on the areas of capacity building of youth development projects to enhance sustainability. The findings will further provide information to youth development projects on resource mobilization strategies to enhance sustainability. The study was based on the human capital theory advanced in the 1960s by Nobel Laureate economists, Theodore Schultz and Gary Becker and will use a descriptive survey design. The target population was 20 youth groups that have been funded through the National Youth Enterprise Fund and have in addition received entrepreneurship training. The stratified simple random sampling technique was used to select 3 leaders and 3 members from each group the sample size for this study comprised of 40 group leaders, 120 group members and 5 Sub-county youth officer making a total sample of 165 respondents. The research instruments included questionnaires and an interview schedule. A pilot study was conducted prior to the actual research to ascertain validity and reliability of the instruments. The Cronbach Alpha coefficient was used to check the internal consistency of items in the questionnaires and was computed with the help of SPSS 21 program to determine if the items used were reliable. Data from the field was coded in preparation for analysis. The researcher then triangulated the questionnaire and interview data to draw conclusions on the influence of entrepreneurship skills on sustainability of youth development projects. Qualitative data obtained from interviews and open-ended items in the questionnaire was analyzed using content/narrative while quantitative data obtained from closed-ended questionnaire items was analyzed using descriptive statistics such as frequencies and percentages. Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) was used to analyze the data. The study concluded that most youth development projects face challenges of sustainability as the implementers may not have skills and experience in areas such as project planning, financial management, marketing, and resources mobilization. This may lead to project failure especially among small-scale projects. The study finally recommended that the challenges of project sustainability can be enhanced through training on entrepreneurship skills such as project planning, financial management, marketing, and resources mobilization