Dr. Befikadu Esayas Amphune

Migration and Urban Livelihoods A Quest for Sustainability in Southern Ethiopia

This article explores migration as a livelihood option in one of the emerging cities in a region that is considered as a development corridor in Ethiopia, Wolaita Sodo. In doing so, it shades light on the major forces behind rural to urban migration, migrants’ access to livelihood resources, and major livelihood activities, coping mechanisms, and outcomes achieved. Concurrent mixed research design was used to generate data both from primary and secondary sources. Mix of migration theories from three different perspectives were reviewed and Sustainable Livelihood Framework was applied as an analytical framework to critically examine the problem in its context. Results show that the main factors behind rural-urban migration were, poverty and unemployment (95.7%); intermittent income and limited job opportunities (93.2%), limited mobility (80.9%), poor health facilities (80%), shortage of cheap energy sources like electricity (79.1%), seasonality of agricultural employment (74%), and insecurity of asset ownership (73.4%); on the other hand, 100% of surveyed migrants reported that "better outlook and hope for the future," "hope that there are no poverty and unemployment challenges", and "hope for better health, education and other services" were the major pull factors; migrants’ vulnerabilities to shocks, trends, and seasonality were highly determined by their available and accessible assets, context within which they are operating and transforming structures which determine their access. Moreover, diverse livelihood activities where short-term coping mechanisms and long-term survival strategies co-exist, livelihood outcomes of migrants were reported both as (positive and negative) but the positive impacts exceeded as measured by livelihood asset indicators. These results broadly attest to the importance of applying migration theories in a comprehensive way as opposed to the conventional wisdom of using a theory. Therefore, pro-migration policies and programs should