Youth Entrepreneurship Training on Poverty Reduction in the Gambia

Entrepreneurship is one of the major drivers of economic activities that promote development and poverty reduction in developed and developing economies of the world. Unfortunately, most youths in developing economies have very low propensities towards entrepreneurship activities. The key factors affecting youth entrepreneurship development in the Gambia are basically inadequate access to financing, training and education, inefficient government policies, and access to relevant information (Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, 2014). Youths age (15 – 35) constitute over 68% of the population thus, requiring greater attention and resources for employment creation (Gambia Bureau of Statistics, 2018). The study adopted a research survey method and descriptive statistics was used for the analysis. The choice of this method was to provide accurate data analysis based on the objective of the study. To analyse the data quantitatively and systematically, closed ended questions were used. The results show that about 92.7% of the respondents indicated that they received one form of entrepreneurship training, about 65.6% of the respondents have received business advisory services, only 44% of the respondents have access to finance and about 89.5% of the respondents indicated that they are aware of initiatives by government and partners that were meant to empower youth and women entrepreneurs. The study recommends that, government and stakeholders should endeavour to fully implement the collateral system prepared for SMEs to have easy access to finance from the commercial banks in the Gambia with affordable rates.