THE CONTRIBUTION OF DEVELOPMENT PARTNERS’ INITIATED PROGRAMS ON THE GROWTH OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN KENYA

Joseph Mwangi Muiru

Masters Student, Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, Kenya

Dr. Makori Moronge

Lecturer, Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, Kenya

ABSTRACT

More than ever before, entrepreneurship has gained traction all over the world. In Africa, the youth unemployment bulge is a real socio-economic and political concern and to mitigate this eminent crisis, governments have invested enormous resources–time, financial and physical, in entrepreneurial programs to mitigate the situation. In Kenya, programs in entrepreneurship and SME support have been rolled out across the country both by government and non-state actors in the belief that the effort contributes to self employment and job creation. We can only ignore the plight of unemployed at our own peril particularly in regard to the associated risks such as social unrest, crime, rural-urban migration and escalation of poverty levels. The study was a descriptive survey to establish the contribution of development partners in fostering entrepreneurship in Kenya. The study targeted the beneficiaries of the District Business Solution Centre (DBSC) in Murang’a County in Kenya. DBSCs programs were initiated by UNDP, ILO, UNIDO and Ministry of Trade. The choice of DBSC program was purposively selected for this study due to the dedicated programs of Business Advisory and Training Services (BATS) and Business Skills and Entrepreneurship Development (BSED). The study was guided by the research objectives which sought to find out the extent to which business support services, entrepreneurship education and training, managerial skills and entrepreneurial finance contributed to the growth of entrepreneurship in Kenya. The regression model was used to analyze the results and obtained R=0.847 and R2 =0.717 which implies that the entrepreneurial program initiated by the development partners significantly contribute to the growth of entrepreneurship in Kenya.

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