Infrastructure, Environmental Risk, and Youth Enterprise Livelihood Sustainability in a Rapidly Urbanizing African City: Evidence from Hawassa, Ethiopia

Abstract The rapid pace of urban growth in African secondary cities affects the context of young people’s entrepreneurial activities, but enterprise and urban infrastructure policies remain largely disconnected. This study analyzes the relationship between infrastructure, environmental, and market factors and enterprise livelihood sustainability for youth-owned micro and small enterprises (MSEs) in Hawassa, Ethiopia. Using a concurrent mixed method approach, a survey of 252 MSE managers was supplemented by 12 key informant interviews, two municipal interviews, and observations from 12 MSE production sites. The binary logistic regression model was used to determine the relationship between livelihood sustainability, measured as an upward trend in enterprise net monthly income, and selected infrastructure, environmental, and market factors. Availability of medium water (OR = 3.293, p = .005) and retailer (OR = 6.151, p = .004) were positively related to livelihood sustainability, whereas high natural-disaster challenges (OR = 0.256, p = .004) and medium resource pressure (OR = 0.252, p = .014) were negatively associated with it. The negative relationship of sanitation is analyzed carefully since some enterprises might invest their own money in these facilities. The findings link enterprise performance with urban expansion, wetlands, stormwater, and urban ecology in Hawassa. The research presents a model that connects urban infrastructure with enterprises and suggests that utilities, drainage, climatic robustness, provision of serviced space, and market linkages should be regarded as productive elements of urban economic policy.