ASSESSING THE IMPACT OF MICRO-ENTERPRISES ON SUSTAINABLE RURAL LIVELIHOODS

s: Rural economies in developing countries face persistent challenges such as unemployment, low incomes, and structural constraints that hinder sustainable development, making self-employment and micro-enterprise development crucial strategies for Sustainable Rural Economic Transformation (SRET). Using a quantitative and explanatory research design, this study analyses primary data from 400 rural entrepreneurs across manufacturing, trading, service, and agro-based sectors through SPSS-based descriptive, correlation, and regression techniques. The findings reveal that self-employment and micro-enterprises significantly contribute to income generation, employment creation, and livelihood security, with skill development, entrepreneurship training, and institutional and financial support playing a decisive role in enhancing enterprise performance and sustainability. Intervening factors such as market linkages, infrastructure availability, technology adoption, and access to credit significantly influence SRET, while policy and institutional bottlenecks, lack of finance, and low skill levels emerge as major challenges. Overall, the study highlights that sustainable rural economic transformation depends on both entrepreneurial initiative and a supportive institutional, infrastructural, and policy ecosystem, offering important policy insights for promoting inclusive and long-term rural development.