“This report is intended to document the rural youth entrepreneurship situation in East Africa, the Ugandan and Kenyan contexts in particular, looking at why rural youth engage in entrepreneurship and what benefits arise there from. The report explores several facets of entrepreneurship as it compares rural youth activities and behaviors in Uganda and Kenya. It examines the socio economic environment in which these young people operate. Further, the report highlights the current policy gaps in youth entrepreneurship by exposing the unique challenges they face and assessing if the initiatives that have been devised have indeed worked. Proposals to achieve entrepreneurship for sustainable growth are then outlined. It is important to understand what kind of enterprises the rural youth entrepreneurs (hereinafter referred to as RYEs) set up and why they do so. In a bid to investigate this we sought to identify the kind of businesses they managed, the age and sizes of these enterprises their previous engagements before the businesses were started, how they acquired their businesses and if they had closed up any businesses before their current ones as well as who they typically employed in their ventures. Data were collected from both countries using mixed research methods. Surveys, in depth interviews and focus group discussions were conducted in all regions of the two countries.”
