A Socio-Economic Linkage of Urban Informal Sector to Formal and Other Informal Sectors in Hawassa Town: Intensifying Growth from the Street

Abstract

A comprehensive survey pertaining to vendors and the role vendors’ play in economic links between urban informal and formal sectors in Hawasa town is not studied so far. Hence, the main purpose of this study has been to identify major vendor activities and examine the types and intensification of socio-economic linkages these vendor activities do have with formal and other informal sectors to stimulate growth in the country in general and in study town in particular. To this end, it had an overall objective of proposing viable government policy interventions aimed at enhancing the productivity and socio-economic intensification of vendor operations. In order to achieve this objective a sample of 140 street vendors were selected from parent population and relevant data were gathered mainly through questionnaires and analyzed using cross tabulations and percentages. The survey revealed the transfer of resource in the form of wage from wage earners to street vending, consumption linkage. The study also found that there was nearly no closer linkage between vendor enterprise and formal financial institutions. The latter lent little loans to street enterprise owners.