Contribution of Street Trade On Livelihood of Poor Family: In Dire Dawa City, Ethiopia

Throughout the world the issue of street vending is common in urban areas. However, its impact may vary from country to country. Even though there is several study on impact of street trade on family income, none of them focused on this trade impact on poor family livelihood. Thus VII main objective of this study is investigating the contribution of street trade activity for livelihood of poor family study area, factor that attract people to start street trade, factors that enable the vendor to generate more income and the challenge of street trade. The type of the research used in this study is both qualitative and quantitative research method. The rational to use this method is to deeply increase quality of the study. Instruments that researcher used to collect primary data is, key informant interview, personal observation and questionnaire. For this, study 153 street vendors participated as sample respondents using purposive from non-probability and stratified and simple random sampling from probability sampling system. The study undertaken in selected place of street trade in Dire Dawa (Conel and Saido). The study result indicate that the sector provides job opportunity for poor in the city. This sector is playing pivotal role even for the country in decreasing unemployment, poverty alleviation and empowering women economically. Majority of street trader are characterized by low level of education mostly elementary and high school dropper. Moreover, the majority age category of the street vendors was between 18 to 29 years with average family size of three. Sex ratio of Dire Dawa city street vendor is majority women who start the business to help her poor father and mother or her husband and widowed or divorced. According to study finding, factors like quality of good, enough capital, physical capability, skill and experience and operating in high income community are enable them to intensify their income. Even though street vending is drastically changing life of poor family in Dire Dawa city, there are numerous challenge that facing vendor daily in their working environment. These activities as a livelihood strategy have brought significant change and outcomes. They are able to survive even if their living conditions are yet unsatisfactory.