Vol. 1, Issue 12, Part A (2015)

Abstract
Giving young people a real chance in everywhere to find decent and productive work is central; it represents an opportunity to pursue a more balanced and sustainable development, with direct positive consequences for poverty alleviation, promoting social integration and stability. But, today’s young generation experiences widening social gaps and faces manifold challenges. Thus, at least to minimize such challenges of young people regarding to being unemployed, countries should create conducive environment to promote youth entrepreneurship. Because of this fact, there is a growing interest in understanding the various challenges of youth entrepreneurship. The main objective of this study was to assess the challenges of youth entrepreneurship on micro and small scale enterprises in North Gondar Zone. A standardized questionnaire was used as an instrument to collect data from a total population of 13,648 small and micro enterprises in North Gondar Zone and the sample size was 402 respondents. The study employed a descriptive survey research type and used stratified sampling technique to collect data from each stratum through simple proportionate stratification. The overall mean value of challenges of youth entrepreneurship is 2.06, and the mean value of credit access, marketing access, infrastructure availability, training and development, business support, and rules & regulations of the government is less than 2.5. But, the mean value of managerial skills is 2.69. Except Jana-amora and Quara woreda, the mean value of the rest of the woredas in north Gondar zone lied between 2.00 and 2.50, but for the two exceptional woredas (Jana-amora and Quara) are bellows 2.00. The survey result confirmed that youth entrepreneurs in the north Gondar zone faced different challenges including poor credit access, education and training, business support, market accessibility, government regulation, and infrastructure. But, managerial skills are not the critical challenges as compared to the above listed one. Among those listed challenges availability of infrastructure and market access have the very lowest mean value or they are the most horrific challenges. Among the different woredas in North Gondar Zone, Jana-amora and Quara are confronted by much wounded challenges than the rest of all.