Small and Medium Enterprises: A Transformative Initiative to Rapid Socio-Economic Development of Edo State, Nigeria

The study determined the extent small and medium scale enterprises in Edo State, Nigeria has helped in providing jobs for the people of Edo State as well as helping to develop rural communities. Two research questions were raised and answered with descriptive statistics of mean and standard deviation. The study adopted a survey research design. A sample of 122 respondents was used for the study. Cronbach Alpha was used to compute the reliability of the instrument and yielded 0.88. The data collected revealed that SMEs provide employment as well as develop the rural communities. Based on these findings, it was recommended that necessary financial assistance should be given to the sector by government and other stakeholders in order to help establish more SMEs in the rural communities to reduce the current unemployment as well as reducing the rural-urban migration.