Evaluation of the Start and Improve Your Business Youth Entrepreneurship Training Program in Lesotho

Abstract

The effects of poverty remain continuous in the third world, with the youth being amongst the hardest hit groups in society. The minimal levels of skills among the youth, coupled with a very limited access to financial facilities undermine their abilities to exploit resources that may be available to them to enable them to start their businesses. While the youth should be a priority in the economic growth and poverty eradication targets of the third world states, small business development initiatives and entrepreneurship education become the best options to equip them with the necessary skills to start their own businesses that would create employment for themselves and their unemployed peers. This study evaluates the Start and Improve Your Business Youth Entrepreneurship training program implemented in Lesotho in 2007. It is anchors on a view that entrepreneurship education is a good strategy to equip the youth with the necessary skills to enable them to start their own businesses to create their own employment and that of their unemployed peers. It goes further to suggest that an effective entrepreneurship program is one that goes beyond classroom learning to emphasise action based learning, for a sustained small business sector and generation of sufficient employment prospects.