Abstract:
Maximizing the Small and Medium Enterprise activities is an important poverty reduction
strategy for vulnerable communities, and SME are important providers of jobs and incomes
for jobless youths and householders. In spite of the presence of large and diverse number of
job seekers, the role (i.e., creation of jobs and income) of SME remains low due to various
reasons such as low consideration of the government to this sector, low and poor awareness
of jobless youths for the activity, lack of good selling places, lack of enough working capitals,
high cost of raw materials, lack of assets for collaterals to credit institutions, and lack of
financial capacity to participate in more and expected amount. The aim of this study was
addressing the pillar contributions of SMEs to rural livelihood development in the study
area. Multi stage sampling procedure was followed to select rural kebeles and entrepreneurs
for the study. Because of my adequate work experience at this Woreda and its proximity to
my living area , this Woreda was selected purposively and three rural kebeles were selected
randomly. Two hundred thirty four entrepreneurs were selected randomly using probability
proportional to size sampling. Structured interview schedule and key informant interview
were used to collect primary data and secondary data were collected from relevant offices.
Result of this study indicated that age of respondents, education level, livestock holding, the
organizing agent contact and training were important variables which had positively and
significantly influenced use of small and micro scale enterprises. Distance from kebele
administration and market had shown negative relationship with use of small and micro
scale enterprises. The good opportunities to extend SME use in the study area include
management training, access to financing, financial assistance, due diligence and
compliance, institutional support, availability of different types of SME activities and others.
And the main challenges that hinder implementation of small and micro scale enterprises are
related to lack of appropriate policy, development strategy,
Description:
ROLE OF MICRO AND SMALL ENTERPRISES (MSES) FOR RURAL
LIVELIHOOD DEVELOPMENT IN ARBA MINCH ZURIA WOREDA,
GAAMO ZONE, SOUTHERN ETHIOPIA
