Promoting youth entrepreneurship in Lagos, Nigeria - SNHU ...

2.0 REVIEW OF LITERATURE2.1 IntroductionIn recent years, the promotion of entrepreneurship as a possible source of job creation,empowerment and economic dynamism in a rapidly globalizing world has attracted increasingpolicy and scholarly attention. However, despite this attention, there has been no systematicattempt to find the balance at which both the education and microfinance could be usedcomplementarily in addressing the problem of youth unemployment. As the 2005 World YouthReport points out, ―Entrepreneurship is not for everyone and so cannot be viewed as a large-scalesolution to the youth employment crisis‖ (p.59). Nonetheless, there is growing interest in theprovision of micro-finance for youth, because it is recognized that education and training on theirown do not usually lead to sustainable self-employment. To date, however, services in this arearemain limited. Numerous problems have been encountered by stakeholders in trying to develop aproduct that can be easily adopted especially in the urban areas.Youth is often considered as a stage where childhood transits into adulthood. It is the transitionfrom being dependent to being independent. One of the most critical factors is the status ofemployment. Young people often feel that having a job or means of livelihood would give themsense of independence which could give them the ability to make choice about their lives,families as well as peers. Unfortunately, that does not happen because they cannot find a job.The tendency has been either to subsume the youth into the general adult population or toignore their efforts to forge a livelihood through enterprise activities. This has resulted in the lackof an adequate understanding of the potential benefits of youth entrepreneurship as a means ofimproving youth livelihoods.13