VOCATIONAL SKILLS TRAINING AND THE GROWTH OF WOMEN MICRO ENTERPRISES: EVIDENCE FROM THE MATHARE WOMEN’S ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT INITIATIVE IN NAIROBI, KENYA​

Vocational skills training is the most widely deployed component of women’s economic empowerment programming in Kenya, yet monitoring in urban informal settlements has typically recorded numbers trained rather than enterprise outcomes. This article examines the influence of project vocational skills training on the growth of women micro-enterprises within the Mathare Women’s Economic Empowerment Initiative (MWEEI) in Nairobi, Kenya. The study adopted a convergent parallel mixed methods design whose quantitative strand was a descriptive cross-sectional survey. From a target population of 1,000 established from MWEEI programme records, a sample of 286 was drawn using Yamane’s (1967) formula; 172 women micro-entrepreneurs were selected by stratified random sampling and 165 returned usable questionnaires (95.9 percent), forming the analytic sample. Training was measured through six five-point Likert items and a categorical record of training completion, and enterprise growth across revenue, market reach, employment generation and business sustainability. Data were analysed in SPSS Version 26 using descriptive statistics, cross-tabulation and multiple linear regression, with the qualitative strand analysed thematically. Training was rated positively overall (M = 3.91, SD = 0.90), with improvement in technical skills highest (M = 4.21, SD = 0.71) and provision of follow-up or refresher training lowest (M = 3.41, SD = 1.14). Training engagement was associated with revenue performance in a monotonic pattern: 48.5 percent of completers reported revenue growth above 30 percent against 9.1 percent of non-completers, while 27.3 percent of non-completers reported declining revenue against 5.8 percent of completers. Training was a statistically significant positive predictor of enterprise growth (β = 0.261, p < .001) and the null hypothesis was rejected. Vocational skills training reliably builds human capital, but its conversion into sustained enterprise growth depends on post-training reinforcement. The article identifies structured reinforcement, rather than training volume, as the design margin on which returns to such training depend.