Enterprise Fund Strategies Used to Alleviate Youth Unemployment in Developing Economies: A Case of Kenya

Abstract

Youth unemployment is one of the greatest challenges facing both developing and developed economies globally. To curb this there are a number of initiatives that have been implemented by the Kenyan government. The paperexamines enterprise fund strategy on youth unemployment. The paper focuses the access to credit facility by youth as mean of reduction youth unemployment. Human capital, information asymmetry and financial intermediation theories were used in the theoretical framework. The study adopted descriptive research design and used structured questionnaires to collect data. A target of 284 registered youth comprising of 204 youth enterprises and 80 women enterprises from which a sample of 85 enterprises were selected. Inferential statistics were obtained using regression model to test the hypothesis. The results of the study found out that access to credit facility was crucial to youth unemployment as well as information technology. Both contributed positively to employment. The study recommended additional funds to be made available to the youth. There is need for the government to make the market accessible and train the unemployed youth which was about four time the employed group. Recommendation for further research includes access to market and unemployment of youth and strategies training on employment of youth.