YOUTH ENTREPRENEURSHIP DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME AND UNEMPLOYMENT IN THE SOUTH EASTERN NIGERIA

EBONYI STATE IN PERSPECTIVE (2015-2023)

Abstract

All over the world today, serious attention is being paid by various governments to secure economic survival through entrepreneurship growth and development by providing the enabling environments like infrastructure, financial facilities and other empowerment that can stimulate entrepreneurship development and thus engage the youth productively to reduce the rate of unemployment and crime in the society. This is so because it is now obvious that governments can no longer provide jobs for the teaming unemployed youth, a situation which has been blamed to be the major cause for the rapid increase of violent crimes among the youth today. Consequently, this paper sought among other things to evaluate the prospects of entrepreneurship in reduction of youth unemployment in Ebonyi State, Nigeria and to verify how technical innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship education can be used as a panacea to unemployment problems of the youth, and thus, promote economic development. Content analysis method was used for the study. The Schumpeter's Theory of Entrepreneurship was adopted as a foundation for theoretical framework. The study revealed that technical innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship education have positive influence on the life of the youth and in reduction of youth unemployment. The implication of the study is that there are lots of prospects in entrepreneurship in reduction of youth unemployment, which prospects ranges from the acquisition of technical and innovative skills, creative abilities, job creation, generation of personal income etc. The study recommended that governments at all levels and policy makers should redirect its policies towards entrepreneurship development and provision of enabling environments that encourage youth entrepreneurship; to productively engage the increasing youth population in technical innovation; that creativity should be encouraged and rewarded by both governments and private individuals or organization where youth who distinguish themselves should be encouraged financially.