Roles of Small and Medium Enterprises in Capacity Building in Enugu State

Abstract

The study examined the roles of  Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs)  in Capacity building in Enugu State, with a focus on the mandates of ministries and agencies in charge of facilitating entreprenurial development on behalf of Enugu State government. A review of other scholars work was carried out. SMEs was defined as an economy driven agent that plays a major role towards capacity building.  A theoretical framework on  the concept of  Community Capacity Building and Joseph Schumpeters view on development was adopted for the study.  A survey design research approach was adopted.The population of the study area was a  total of 1045 and a sample size of 310 derived through Taro Yammani formular. Simple random sampling method was used to select the respondents. Frequency percentage tables and chi-square statistical method was adopted to analyze the samples collected using likert scaling method. The hypothesis of the research was tested at 0.05 level of significance to find out if, SMEs play significant roles in capacity building within Enugu State and its environment. It was revealed that, SMEs have created employment but not with significant effect, and had little  effect on the individauls standard of living with chi-square result of 0.00 P value rejecting the null hypotheses. It had built individual skills and technical knowledge for entrepreneurs to facilitate capacity building within the environment of Enugu state but of little effect with P-value = 0.00 rejecting the null hypotheses and accepting the alternate hypotheses  have SMEs had improved on innoviations on the environments of the state with chi-square value P =0.00. However, the descriptive statistics revealed that, the competitive nature of the economy and rate of graduate turnover from tertiary institutions trils down SMEs impact on employment creation. In view of these findings, this study recommended:  improved fundings of Start-up loans for young entrepreneurs in order to meet up graduate turnover from universities and colleges and to put in place protective policies for young industires. More regular training and incentives programmes, consultations, supervision and counseling of both existing and aspiring entrepreneurs to improve individual skills, technical knowledge of entrepreneurs. Also proper monitoring and evaluation  techniques should be adopted  by funding institutions and MDAs to ensure proper utilization of funds