Determinants of Uptake of Youth Enterprise Development Fund by the Youths in Bomet County

Abstract

Lack of access to finance has been identified as one of the major constraints to small business growth. The reason is that provision of financial services is an important means for mobilizing resources for more productive use .Since Kenya attained independence, considerable efforts have been directed towards accelerating access to finance geared towards enterprise development. However the efforts have been partially successful. In Bomet County, statistics show that there is low uptake of Youth Enterprise Development Fund (YEDF) by youth groups. The study therefore seeks to investigate factors that determine the level of uptake of the fund. The specific objectives of the study are; to undertake institutional assessment and organizational profile of youth groups to assess level of awareness and perception of Youth Enterprise Development Fund (YEDF) amongst youth groups and to determine factors that influence uptake of Youth Enterprise Development Fund (YEDF) by youth groups in Bomet County. The target population of the study is youth groups in Bomet County. The study will use the list of all the registered youth groups in Bomet County. The list will be obtained from the County youth office. Since the target population under the study is homogenous, Yamane‟s (1967) formula for sample size determination will be applied. For the study, population size is 300 youth groups therefore the required sample size is 171 youth groups. For robustness of results, 180 youth groups will be selected to participate in the study. Primary data will be collected using questionnaire administered to the officials of youth groups. The structured questionnaire will have both open and closed ended questions. The questionnaire is designed to cover: general information about the factors influencing uptake of YEDF and institutional framework and organizational profile of youth groups. Data will be coded and entered into Microsoft Excel and SPSS version 17.0 for analysis. First, descriptive statistics will be done to assess the characteristics of the youth groups that will participate in the study. Likert scale will be used to assess the degree of Youth groups‟ level of awareness and perception on YEDF while logistic regression will be used to determine factors that influence uptake of YEDF. The findings will be useful to policy makers in the government and researchers among others. The findings will also enable policy makers in the government to develop appropriate policy interventions to support the youth groups in Kenya.