Youth Empowerment and Entrepreneurship in Nigeria: Implication for Economic Diversification

Abstract

Nigerian government through its various agencies, World Bank, nongovernmental organizations, and even private philanthropists, has recently resorted to committing a lot of resources to training and empowering the youths in various entrepreneurships. This is done with the aim of enhancing creation of jobs, reduction of poverty, and generation of income both to individuals and government thereby bringing about economic diversification which will help reduce overdependence on government and oil revenue, hence leading to economic growth and development. While these initiatives are steps in the right direction, this study therefore empirically examined whether empowering the youths has significantly contributed to the growth of entrepreneurship thereby leading to economic diversification in Nigeria using the Nigeria Enterprise Survey Data (2014) and applying the multinomial logistic regression model. It was found among others that almost all the variables used to capture entrepreneurship growth and development in Nigeria were statistically significant except for tax rates, transportation cost, and land access (comparing micro and large enterprises with the small-scale enterprise) and tax rates, subsidy, and land access (comparing medium enterprise with small-scale enterprise). It was recommended among others that governments at all levels and its various agencies, World Bank, nongovernmental organizations, and even private philanthropists, need to do more on entrepreneurship training programs of youths. The training should be accompanied with sustained financial and nonfinancial support and monitoring the business activities of these entrepreneurs after empowering them.