FACTORS AFFECTING YOUTH LEADERSHIP IN COUNTY GOVERNMENT IN KENYA

Abstract

This study was influenced by the fact that the number of young leaders in the country is considerably low in comparison to the country’s youth population which stands at roughly 80%. There is not much literature on why this is the case and this, therefore, necessitated the need to conduct the study in an attempt to find out the challenges the youth face in their quest for leadership, especially at the county level. The study was guided by the following research objectives: to find out whether competency affects youth leadership in the county government of Kwale; to examine whether empowerment affects youth leadership in the county government of Kwale; and to find out whether corruption affects youth leadership in the county government of Kwale. A descriptive research design was adopted by the study and the target population was that of the youth working in the county government and the preferred age bracket was between 24-35 years. Simple random sampling was used to select the 148 respondents for the study. The study was quantitative in nature and data was collected via questionnaires which included both open and close ended questions, and a Likert-scale. The data collected was analyzed and presented using both descriptive and inferential statistics with the help of the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software. The findings indicated that competency, empowerment, and corruption affected youth leadership at the County Government of Kwale. Competency had a strong and significant relationship with youth leadership since the p=value was 0.000 which is less than 0.05. Empowerment had a positive but insignificant relationship with youth leadership since the p-value was 0.241 which is greater than 0.05. Corruption had a negative insignificant relationship since it’s p-value was 0.48 which is greater than 0.05. These findings indicated that the competency is the most appropriate tool for enhancing youth leadership at Kwale County Government. A few recommendations were drawn from the study. These included improving competency to ensure better youth leadership at the County Government of Kwale; effective implementation of youth empowerment at Kwale County so as to attain effective youth leadership; and implementing effective mechanisms to stop corruption in order to ensure effective youth leadership at Kwale County Government.