Youth Enterprise Development Fund (Yedf) and Growth of Enterprise at Constuency Level in Kenya

Abstract

The Youth Enterprise Development Fund (YEDF) was instigated to ensure that a specific portion of the Government annual ordinary revenue is devoted to the constituencies for the purpose of development and growth of enterprise among youth at constituency level. Unlike other development funds that filter from the Central Government through larger and more layers of administrative organs and bureaucracies, funds under this program go directly to local levels and thus provide people at the grassroots the opportunity to make expenditure decisions that maximize their welfare consistent with the theoretical predictions of decentralization theory. Increasingly, however, concerns about efficiency in utilization of funds under this program emerge. This paper reports results of a survey involving the use of questionnaires and interview schedules to collect qualitative and quantitative information from the stakeholders in two constituencies in Kenya. Linear ordinary least square regression was used to assess the effect of YEDF on growth of small enterprises at constituency level. The study provides information regarding the effect of awareness, involvement, perceptions and allocation efficiency of funds on growth of enterprise in the selected constituencies. The results of this study are invaluable to the Youth, the Government and micro-finance institutions involved in financing youth enterprises to evaluate the value of YEDF.