Assessing the Role of Youth to Youth Fund in Addressing Entrepreneurship Challenges Among Youth in Kenya: A Case of Nairobi County

Abstract

This study aimed at assessing the role of youth to youth fund on addressing entrepreneurship challenges among the youth in Nairobi County. The International Labour Organization through the Youth to Youth Fund (Y2YF) set up this fund to help youth entrepreneurs grow and develop their businesses. The objectives of this study were to investigate the challenges faced by youth in starting and developing their own enterprises in Nairobi County, investigate the strategies adopted to improve the level of job satisfaction among youth entrepreneurs, to determine the ease of accessing grants among the youth in Nairobi County and to assess the ease of accessing entrepreneurship knowledge among the youth in Nairobi county. Descriptive survey research design was used to collect data. Cluster stratified random sampling was used to get the needed sample from the target population of 210 from which a sample size of 105 was arrived at. Both qualitative and quantitative methods were used to collect data, and Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20 was used to analyze the data. The study found out that inadequate funding, poor management of resources, sophisticated technology and fierce competition are the major challenges to youth entrepreneurship in Nairobi County. The study concluded that there was a causal relationship between variables of challenges and strategies adopted to enhance job satisfaction. It suggested ways that can be used to scale up the whole program to many more counties that were not reached at in phase one of the implementation and provide advisory work in setting up other entrepreneurial funds which are geared towards addressing youth entrepreneurial challenges in Kenya. It also recommended the various ways of promoting youth entrepreneurship in Kenya with a specific focus on Nairobi County