Impact of Public, Private and Non-Governmental Organisations’ Financial Interventions on Youth Livelihood Outcomes in Kenya

This study investigated the impact of public, private and Non-Governmental Organisations’ financial interventions on youth livelihood outcomes (YLO) in Kenya. A survey of 201 respondents randomly sampled from registered Youth Self-Help Groups in Nairobi County was conducted. Results showed that males constituted 74% and females made up 26% of the sample. The ages of the respondents ranged from 18 to 35 years. The results for livelihood outcomes indicated that 52% of the youth were at a survival level, 18% were at the security level and 30% were at the growth level of youth livelihood outcomes. Hypothesis test results further revealed that there was a relationship between the financial interventions and youth livelihood outcomes (χ2= 18.70; d.f. =7; p<0.05). Further regression results revealed three significant predictors of YLO in rank order as the public devolved funds comprised of Youth Enterprise Development Fund and Uwezo Fund (β= 0.761; p=0.009), followed by private micro-finance institutions (β=1.003; p=0.010) and finally, informal loans provided to members of Youth Self-Help Groups  (β=1.037; p=0.018. The variables that were not significant predictors of YLO were Non-Profit Organisations, Faith-Based Organisations and Community-Based Organisations’ financial interventions. These findings implied that government-sponsored devolved funds had the greatest impact on youth livelihood outcomes, followed by funding by private micro-finance institutions and finally informal loans provided by the youth self-help groups to their members. This study has established that the public, private and the youth self-help groups’ financial interventions had the most significant positive impacts on youth livelihood outcomes.  It was recommended that there was a need to provide more youth-targeted financial interventions by both the public and the private sectors in order to enhance youth livelihood outcomes. Furthermore, active participation by the youth in their development process is paramount for sustainable livelihoods to be achieved.