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The purpose of this paper is to contribute to knowledge and theory building in youth empowerment and entrepreneurship development.

This paper critically examines the Youth Enterprise with Innovation in Nigeria (YouWiN) programme and its relevance as a youth economic empowerment programme through the lens of the UNDP Youth Strategy entry points for promoting economic empowerment of youth and extant literature on critical youth empowerment using participatory development theories.

While YouWiN is a significant intervention towards entrepreneurship development, it presents some flaws and limitations in the design and implementation process, which may challenge sustainable economic development. Hence, there is a need to explore the millennials empowerment paradigm in light of three key complementary action-oriented approaches to youth entrepreneurship development.

This paper proposes three key complementary action-oriented approaches to youth entrepreneurship policy/programme design, implementation and evaluation for the multilateral agencies, private and voluntary sectors. These are in the form of facilitating participatory engagement and diversity, managing drivers (push/pull factors) of entrepreneurship, and ensuring access to enablers/support. There is the need for further debate and critical inputs to improve theory building towards a normative framework in youth empowerment and entrepreneurship. This contributes to ending poverty, and promoting intergenerational equity and sustainable development.

The paper sought to make contribution to youth entrepreneurship research field. This is because whilst youth entrepreneurship presents enormous socio-economic benefits, including economic growth, diversification, innovation and poverty elimination earlier research have paid more attention to adults' entrepreneurship with less attention been paid to youth entrepreneurship resulting in a compelling research gap following the present huge youth unemployment across the world. Consequently, the motivation of the paper is to guide public policy and practice on the promotion of youth entrepreneurship, especially in developing countries.

The study employs the survey research design based on logistic regression analysis as the key analytical technique to examine data. The choice of the logistic regression model is due to the fact that the main research question that informs the study is a dichotomous one. Hence it was found appropriate to select the logit regression model based on similar works in the field.

Over all, the results show that lack of financial support from one's family background, early entry into formal employment, as well as being born into entrepreneurial dominated families significantly predict the probability of a youth considering entrepreneurship as an attractive life venture.

The study is based on non-probability sampling method and so readers must bear that in mind when they are interpreting the results.

Following from the findings, one of the practical implications is that youth entrepreneurs must align the external influences to the internal capacity of the businesses to initiate and/or start sustainable entrepreneurial ventures.

The study sheds light from an under-explored and new geographical context to advance existing knowledge in the field.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the extent to which entrepreneurial resourcefulness and competencies theories and practice can be applied in small youth entrepreneurship in Ghana as well as develop an entrepreneurial resourcefulness model for youth entrepreneurs that incorporates their competencies.

A qualitative exploratory approach using semi-structured in-depth interviews amongst 32 youth entrepreneurs in Accra, Ghana was used.

Youth entrepreneurial resourcefulness embraces some relevant concepts of traditional entrepreneurial resourcefulness and competencies. It also emerged that there were other competencies including discipline, understanding business numbers and being empathic which are competencies associated with youth entrepreneurial resourcefulness.

This paper was limited to a small sample of youth entrepreneurs in Ghana; thus, the generalisation of findings should be done with care.

A “3Ps” model for entrepreneurial resourcefulness in youth micro-entrepreneurship is proposed, which encompasses the attributes of personal, people and political competencies. This paper is one of the few attempts to study and explain the type of competencies and resources embedded in youth entrepreneurial resourcefulness.

Youth entrepreneurship has been identified as a key driver in overcoming the economic crisis spurred by youth unemployment. However, the understanding of youth entrepreneurship is largely based on research in high-income countries. Furthermore, entrepreneurship studies to date are largely limited to the independent effects of individual traits on entrepreneurial intention (EI). Hence, this study aims to model the cognitive and social conditions, mediating processes and interactions to understand how youth EI can be formed and strengthened in an emerging economy.

A cross-sectional sample of 295 Malaysian youths participating in an online entrepreneurship program were included to assess their family socioeconomic background, individual personality traits and EI using regression, mediation and moderation models. Within the sample, 29 youths who completed the program were examined for pre- and post-training intervention differences to identify whether entrepreneurial traits can be developed.

Results showed that a proactive personality or proactiveness was a key mediator in how an internal locus of control (ILOC) and self-esteem influence EI. Furthermore, ILOC and proactiveness were found to compensate for the lack of parental financial support in the formation of EI among low-income youth. Finally, there was a significant increase in proactive personality scores post-intervention, indicating that this trait can be strengthened through entrepreneurship programs.

This study focused on parental income as an indicator of family socioeconomic background, which may not accurately represent the diversity of the socio-ecological environment of an individual. Therefore, future research should assess the multi-dimensional indicators of socioeconomic status and their relations with psychological attributes in shaping EI. Furthermore, this study observed a small sample size for the pre- and post-intervention analysis. Hence, more studies with large sample sizes are needed to examine the impact of entrepreneurship education.

Considering that entrepreneurship is envisioned as an instrument to lift youths out of poverty, this study has important implications for entrepreneurship programs that target low-income youths. The findings suggest that such programs need to first emphasize developing ILOC and proactiveness among these youths, thus enabling them to overcome various structural barriers toward entrepreneurship, as opposed to a purely knowledge-based learning approach.

To effectively lift youths out of poverty through entrepreneurship, policymakers and educational institutions need to first recognize that the EI of youth from varying socioeconomic backgrounds are formed differently. Hence, the approach of entrepreneurship programs catered toward youth from lower socioeconomic backgrounds will differ from programs catered to youths who are financially secure. Instead of a one-size-fits-all approach, entrepreneurship programs targeted at low-income youths must first emphasize building their mindsets of ILOC and proactivity to overcome financial challenges as opposed to focusing solely on building entrepreneurial skills and knowledge.

The findings offer a more holistic and nuanced view of the contingencies where the efforts of policymakers, educational institutions and practitioners are more likely to succeed in stimulating EI among youths in emerging economies. In addition, the study also bridges the gap between the theoretical understanding of EI and the practical implications of developing effective entrepreneurship programs by combining the cross-sectional analysis and pre- and post-intervention test in the same study. Importantly, the study highlighted the importance of considering youth’s socioeconomic background in the design and implementation of entrepreneurship programs.

Entrepreneurship is promoted as a solution to high rates of youth unemployment around the world and especially in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). This paper investigates the potential for youth entrepreneurship to alleviate unemployment, focusing on Egypt, Jordan and Tunisia.

The authors examine who entrepreneurs are (in comparison to the unemployed), using multinomial logit models. The authors compare entrepreneurs' and wage workers' working conditions and earnings. They exploit panel data to assess earnings and occupational dynamics. They specifically use the Labor Market Panel Surveys of 2012 (Egypt), 2016 (Jordan), and 2014 (Tunisia), along with previous waves.

The authors find that entrepreneurs are the opposite of the unemployed in MENA. The unemployed are disproportionately young, educated and women. Entrepreneurs are older, less educated and primarily men. Entrepreneurship does not generally lead to higher earnings and does have fewer benefits.

Promoting youth entrepreneurship is not only unlikely to be successful in reducing youth unemployment in MENA, but also, if successful, may even be harmful to youth.

This study aims to examine the impact of social media (SM) on the creation of digital entrepreneurship by female (irrespective of age) and youth male (aged 18–29 years) entrepreneurs, investigate if SM empowers those entrepreneurs and compare the empowerment characteristics between female and youth male entrepreneurs before and after starting their businesses.

Self-assessment questionnaires were collected from a sample of 408 Egyptian female and youth male digital entrepreneurs from Greater Cairo, whose businesses had been operating for more than one year.

The research showed the following four results: Of the surveyed entrepreneurs, 95% asserted that without SM, they would not have started their businesses. Female and youth male entrepreneurs are empowered both on personal and relational levels, and women’s empowerment is more evident in the latter. Before digital entrepreneurship, youth males have significantly higher averages than female entrepreneurs in almost all empowerment characteristics, whereas after digital entrepreneurship, female entrepreneurs have significantly higher averages in making decisions related to investment, personal education and personal health, as well as those of other household members. Female entrepreneurs are relatively more empowered than youth males after digital entrepreneurship when each group is compared with its initial status.

This study’s originality stems from using a large sample of entrepreneurs, including youth males, not just females; employing a more structured, comprehensive measure of empowerment than found in the literature because it included the rarely used psychological dimension; considering more than one SM tool and comparing empowerment of females to that of youth males.

Agriculture, since time immemorial, has been a major sector in reducing poverty, accelerating economic activities and source of sustainability of a nation. As most of the youth in the 21st century are targeting the youth's career in the non-agricultural sector, attracting and involving the youths in agribusinesses is the need of the hour. In this regard, the research tries to understand the awareness and involvement of youth farmers in agripreneurship in Western Nepal.

Using a structured questionnaire, data were collected from both primary and secondary sources. On the basis of descriptive and inferential analysis, the ordered logit model is employed in the study. The research is based on explanatory research design through identifying farmers' awareness of agriculture entrepreneurship from 324 farmers of Bedkot Municipality, Kanchanpur, Nepal.

Study findings have shown that agricultural knowledge with overall awareness is statistically significant. Ordered logistic regression indicated that sex has somehow influenced technical and entrepreneur skills while agriculture information highly influenced education and training. The result shows that agricultural training is still the requirement of one-fourth of the farmers, whereas another quarter of farmers need subsidies.

The study suggests that in order to enhance awareness, training, subsidy, market management and development program are widely needed. In the backdrop of declining agro-products and food security challenges, the study targets to offer an understanding to policymakers and stakeholders on addressing the dire need of agripreneurship among the youths around the world.

The study summarizes the state of knowledge of agripreneurship of Nepalese farmers, identifies emerging issues and policy implications and priorities for future applied research.

Using resource-based theory as a base, this paper aims to analyse the moderating role of entrepreneurial education on the relationship between psychological (perseverance and fear of failure) and social (family support and role models) factors as they related to entrepreneurial readiness among female youth.

A sample of 1914 female youth who have pursued a formal entrepreneurial course was used to understand the relationship and its impact on entrepreneurial readiness. Liner regression technique was used to understand the hypotheses set for the study.

The results signify a positive impact of perseverance and family support for entrepreneurial readiness, while that of fear of failure was negative, role models were positive but non-significant. Entrepreneurial education was key for enhancing psychological and social factors abilities for female youth entrepreneurial readiness.

The cross-sectional data collected from females in an urban area makes the generalisation of the findings challenging.

Policymakers and academia are to be cognizant of the fact that formal entrepreneurial education is a contributor to entrepreneurial readiness.

This study adds to the paucity of research on entrepreneurial readiness of female youth in developing economies like Ghana with the identification and explanation of its antecedents as well as situating it in both resource-based view and social capital theories.

The practice of social entrepreneurship has grown rapidly around the world, including in Malaysia where it is still considered to be at an early stage. Nevertheless, little is known about the career transition among youth who choose careers as social entrepreneurs. The purpose of this study is to explore the challenges faced by youth social entrepreneurs who run social enterprises in Malaysia.

This study used a qualitative approach to collect and analyse data to answer the research questions. Seven youth social entrepreneurs were interviewed until data saturation was met. An interview guide was created for the purposes of conducting the interviews. The interviews were recorded using a voice recorder. Data were transcribed verbatim and grouped in order to identify the codings, categories and themes.

The findings show the career transition to become a social entrepreneur, as well as the major challenges that youth social entrepreneurs face, which include acclimatising to the life and career of a social entrepreneur and not getting support from family.

The study findings are also significant for presenting valuable data on the experience of the developing social entrepreneur. The qualitative nature of the study provides valuable experiential insight into the lives and struggles of young social entrepreneurs in Malaysia. The findings will allow local authorities and social entrepreneurship regulatory agencies to design initiatives and plan actions intended to overcome the challenges.

This study makes an original contribution by showing that the process of career development as a social entrepreneur has given meaning to the informants. Despite presenting many challenges, social entrepreneurship has reinforced the role of youth social entrepreneurs, especially in relation to social responsibility.

The purpose of this paper is to critically examine the agri-business/small and medium investment schemes (AGSMEIS) in Nigeria. Its special focus is to investigate the impact of the AGSMEIS on youth entrepreneurship development in Nigeria.

This paper adopts a survey research technique, aimed at gathering information from a representative sample of the population, as it is essentially cross-sectional, describing and interpreting the current situation. A total of 1,200 respondents were sampled across the six geopolitical zones of Nigeria.

The results from the use of a combined propensity score matching (PSM) and logit model indicate that AGSMEIS initiative generates significance gains in empowering youths in enterprise development, and if enhanced will help many young people become entrepreneurs.

This suggests that AGSMEIS initiative can facilitate youth's access to credit and help them become owners of small and medium enterprises.

It implies that investing in young people for small and medium enterprises could bring Nigeria into the modern economy and lift sub-Saharan Africa out of poverty.

This research adds to the literature on youth entrepreneurship development’s debate in developing countries. It concludes that targeting the young people in AGSMEIS should form the foundation of public policy for entrepreneurship, poverty alleviation, and economic development.