Entrepreneurship Development Programme as a Mechanism for Poverty Reduction in Nigeria

Poverty is a global threat and more devastating in the developing world. In line with the global proclamation, Nigeria government introduced several intervention programmes to address the problems of mass unemployment, low productivity, high inflation, and poverty. Against this backdrop, this conceptual paper employed secondary data to analyze the contribution of entrepreneurship development on poverty alleviation in Nigeria. The paper contends that entrepreneurship development program (EDP) in Nigeria offer a palliative measure in addressing unemployment crises vis-à-vis poverty reduction among our teeming graduates. The failure of EDP was attributed paucity of fund, political instability, corruption and lack of administrative capacity to provide a holistic approach to the policy on poverty reduction etc. To this end, the paper wishes to recommend that government needs to create an investor-friendly environment, that can address the dilapidated infrastructural facilities especially, power sector, roads and railways, adequate security and give every citizen the sense of belonging among others. Keywords: Poverty, Entrepreneurship, Development, Program