Abstract

Contemporary governments globally seek meaningful politico-social and economic intervention policies that would ensure the progress of their countries. One of such key areas has been youth economic advancement due to threats posed by unemployment. In such efforts, the Government of Ghana introduced the National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP) which is implemented by the Youth Employment Agency. However, several studies and reports show that the program has not made much impact in addressing the situation. Adopting a descriptive research approach, this study was undertaken to examine the key factors that account for ineffective implementation of the NYEP by the Youth Employment Agency (YEA) in the Kumasi Metropolis. It sampled one hundred and thirty (130) participants from a target population of 648 through random and purposive sampling procedures. Regarding instrumentation, self-administered questionnaires and unstructured interviews were employed. Some positive impacts of the YEA in the implementation of the Programme were identified to include providing jobs, training, and experience to the Ghanaian youth. However, the Agency is prone to several challenges which are attributed to party politics, highly centralized administration system, corruption, and inadequate financial resource. It is recommended that effective measures such as adequate funding and effective decentralisation of power should be considered to manage the challenges that bedevil the implementation process.