Abstract:
The Youth
Enterprise Development Fund (YEDF) was established in year 2006 with the sole
purpose of reducing unemployment among the youth
.
. In Ol Kalou Constituency, it is estimated
that 27% of youths are unemployed and only 9% are in wage employment the remainder w
ork
in the informal sector. This
study
was a descriptive research whose target population was 75
group leaders and three DDOs, and three DYOs in the Constituency. A sample of 63
respondents was drawn using simple random
sampling. Data was collected through
self
administered questionnaires and analyzed by descriptive analysis using SPSS
22
. The study
found that the disbursed loan amount is sufficient to improve the youth welfare, the grace period
given is sufficient, loan repayment duration has been sufficie
nt
. T
hey also agreed that the loan
amount lend leads to slow repayment of loan and that the avenues of payment are efficient. The
amount
of loans disbursed is adequate.
A
significant proportion of the groups had not received
training prior to being given l
oan. The study concludes that
government’s introduction of an
entrepreneurship development fund with a view of encouraging the youth to venture into self
-
employment, is very generous move
.
Training should be
given
to groups before any government
funding
.
A
dequate resources in terms of additional personnel and funds should be provided to
enable smooth monitoring of all funded youth groups.
