Technical teams from local government failed to ascertain youth needs. Expressions like “Wa pee ki ngat moo ma tiro wadok miniwa kony” (we lack guidance and support) stemmed from all youth enterprises visited. Most of the youth rarely saw any extension worker, government or district/subcounty official visiting youth ventures. Several rural youth enterprises in Palaro, Patiko and Paicho Sub-counties had never been visited, advised, or supported during their operation; even urban enterprises were not monitored. The youth declared that they only received phone calls from officials demanding repayment or progress reports on projects.
We report cases of animal diseases, fights, conflicts, mismanagement of funds to the subcounty, district, but officials keep a deaf ear. When you call the veterinary officer, he asks for transport allowance. We were not helped at all until our group dissolved (FGD male participant, Paicho Subcounty).
We were given a telephone number to call in case of any problem; when we call the subcounty Community Development Officer or Agricultural Officer either promises to come or sends inexperienced interns. Sometimes we asked these interns questions, and they fail completely; the interns were even working under NGO arrangement (FGD male participant, Patiko Subcounty).
This implied that government had limited extension officers to build youth resources. A municipal councillor reiterated:
People get money to go and monitor, instead they move in two or three groups, just go, and relax. The youth councillors are being facilitated but the facilitation is not doing the right thing; you find youth leaders within municipality get money for monitoring but divide it within a few minutes. He/she does not go to the field for monitoring, they are not even informed, when you ask about something, they just go to the Community Development Officer and inquire.
District officials acknowledged this finding explaining that they rarely conduct quarterly monitoring due to limited facilitation such as fuel, motorcycles for field movements, and safari day allowance for the exercise. They claimed that some places were so remote that one required more than one week visiting all YIGs in the subcounty. Officers were overloaded with multiple roles; one works both as a probation officer and YLP focal point officer. Youth were left to struggle on their own and ended up with production and market deficiencies. Thus, even if resources existed, youth had no guidance, information, and technical rectification of business failures. Many agricultural projects such as piggery, poultry, crop production, and animal traction necessitate constant monitoring by a team of animal and agronomic specialists to assess performance and offer necessary support.
Most participants felt youth were not fully prepared to use available resources. Youth hastily formed groups whenever they heard about funding opportunities without entrepreneurial orientation, awareness of technical aspects and consideration of local resources. A case in point is Gumperon Youth Livelihood Produce business and Waryemo Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLA) in Awach Subcounty, which failed immediately after receiving funding, yet the area is gifted with fertile land. YIG leaders took advantage of members’ ignorance and unpreparedness and mismanaged finance. Youth lacked self-awareness and information about opportunities. Youth claimed they were not trained and motivated to utilise available resources.