Influence of social network on accessing youth entreprise development fund, a survey of youth owned entreprises in rachuonyo north sub county

Youth unemployment in Kenya has been the main challenge faced over the years. Based on this challenge, the government of Kenya conceived the idea of Youth enterprises development fund in 2006 as a strategic measure towards arresting youth unemployment in the country through enterprises. This study examined the influence of social network in accessing the youth enterprises development fund conceived by the Government of Kenya in 2006. This study was restricted to youth enterprises owners within Rachuonyo North Sub County. The selected youth owners’ enterprises who received youth fund acted as units of study from where the respondents were drawn. Questionnaires with open and close ended questions were developed and administered to the respondents; key informant persons were interviewed. The numbers of youth enterprises owners who received youth enterprises development fund in Rachuonyo North Sub County were 700 out of which 22% were selected through a random sampling technique giving a sample size of 152. Pilot study was conducted to test the reliability and validity of the research tools. Secondary data was obtained from records kept by Sub County Youth office in Rachounyo North Sub County Offices, National Government publications on Youth Enterprise Development Fund (YEDF) and refereed journals. Pearson correlation coefficient was used to establish factors affecting access of youth enterprises development fund in Rachuonyo North Sub County. It was appropriate to use the technique because the statement used were interval and ratio-scaled. The results were presented in tabular form using frequencies and percentages alongside inferential statistics. There was a positive influence of social network on accessing of the youth enterprises development fund [r=.389, n=149, p<.05], this indicated that an increase in youth social network, made access of the fund successful. The social network had significant relationship with access of YEDF and this indicates that social network is a very important factor to young entrepreneurs.