The Challenges of Youth Empowerment through Access to Credit in the Rural Areas of Nigeria

Abstract

Unemployment and poverty are endemic among Nigerian youth in spite of numerous approaches to curtail the menace Access to credit is critical to enable the poor to transform their production systems and thus exit poverty. It is a well known fact that an efficient financial sector that responds to the needs of the private sector increases investment, enhances economic growth, and creates job opportunities which is one of the major challenges for developing economies. This paper examines the role of credit deepening on youth empowerment and poverty reduction in Nigeria. The approach of the paper is qualitative and uses content analysis; literature was reviewed and thereafter conclusion was drawn based on the literature weight. It is however important to note that economic empowerment through accessibility to credit could be achieved if and only if factors like collateral, interest rate, transaction cost and financial literacy, among others that pose challenges in accessing credit are remedied Specifically we recommend Indian model (Bharatia Yuva Shakti).