Status and Effects of Youth Economic Opportunity Interventions in Shashamane Town, West Arsi Zone, Oromia Region, Ethiopia

Abstract The general objective of the study was aimed to assess the status and effect of youth economic opportunity intervention to make a significant contribution as the study goes beyond assessing local government effort made to create economic opportunity and existing viable challenges to inform local leaders that works for the youth in Shashemene Town. The research has been organized in five chapters containing major titles and subtitles with detailed explanations. The research has designed about three major research objectives so as to conclude the core of the whole research. The study covers four sub city of the study area. The research basically carried out use of descriptive research type and employed both qualitative dominant and qualitative method of data collection from 120 samples together with 40 discussion participants. The respondents for interviews and FGD had selected using purposively sampling approach based on their relevance and experience to the topic of the study. The data collected through various data collection tools has been further coded and thematically analyzed and discussed. The finding of the research indicate that the local authority had created economic opportunities that changed the livelihood of the youth those accessed and engaged on the economic opportunity interventions and or income generating activities and contributed to solve the consequences of youth unemployment. Moreover, some of the challenges of the ongoing economic opportunity intervention undergo are lack of transparency, rent seeking behavior, lack of adequate work place, limitation of technical assistance and false promise from the government experts and officials. The finding of the research concludes that the magnitude and consequences of youth unemployment and the size of economic opportunity created by local authority mismatch and recommended for requirement of multi-stakeholder action to solve youth economic challenge in general and that of urban area in particular.