Abstract:
This study surveyed the impact of Federal Government support agencies on the development of Entrepreneurship in Enugu State, Nigeria. The main objective is to investigate the impact of Federal government support agencies in the development of entrepreneurship in Enugu State. This study specifically investigated how SMEDAN, NDE, NAPEP, NERFUND, and ITF influenced the development of entrepreneurship in Enugu state. The researcher adopted survey research design. Data were collected by questionnaire structured in the Five Point Likert Scale format and interview. The sources of data were through primary and secondary sources. The population of the study was 22,850 consisting of the beneficiaries of government support agencies in the category of micro, small, and medium enterprises in Enugu State, Nigeria. specifically this study focused on the micro enterprises which has a population of 889. Sample size of 268 was derived by the application of Cochran’s formula for finite population while Bowley’s proportional allocation method was adopted to determine the allocation of questionnaire to respondents that have benefited from each organization. . A test-retest method was used to determine the reliability of questionnaire using Spearman’s Rank Order Correlation Coefficient. The result gave a reliability coefficient of 0.87. The five hypotheses were formulated and tested through Simple linear regression for hypotheses 1 and 3 while hypotheses 2 and 4 were tested by Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient. at 0.05 level of significance. Some of the findings include that SMEDAN affects the establishment of micro businesses, there is relationship between NDE and the drive for self-employment, NAPEP affects business ideas generation. This study concludes that encouraging SMES through various agencies remains a sine qua non for inclusive and socially sustainable development. This study recommends that the management of SMEDAN should strategically position themselves through proper planning and articulating policy ideas for micro, small and medium enterprises growth and development by adequately stimulating, monitoring and coordinating the development of the SMES sector especially in Enugu state.
