Rural households need alternative sources of livelihood strategies to supplement their small scale agricultural activities, to attain food security and to improve their livelihood at large. This situation is different among men and women since they have different access to resources, and opportunities that are pertinent to diversify livelihood strategies. Hence, this study aimed to assess the determinants factors of rural women livelihood diversification strategies in the case of Meket Woreda. The explanatory sequential mixed research design was employed to conduct this study and primary data sources were used to collect data. The survey questionnaire was collected from 251 sampled women-headed households selected from three rural kebeles of the study area through multi-stage sampling methods (stratified, proportional, and simple random sampling methods). Descriptive and inferential statistics were applied to analyze the quantitative data. The result shows that the majority (48%) of respondents entirely depended on only farm activities as their livelihood strategies, 30 % and 13.5% of respondents were engaged into farm plus non –farm and farm plus off-farm livelihood strategies respectively whereas the remaining few 8% of respondents depended on the combination of farm, on-farm, and off-farm livelihood strategies. The result of multinomial logistic regression model showed that age, marital status, distance to market, membership to the social association, access to training, credit, land, water, and access to agricultural input positively determined the livelihood diversification strategies of respondents at( p<0.05); whereas family size, educational level, domestic duties as well as access to safety net negatively determined the livelihood diversification strategies of rural women headed a household in the study site at (p<0.05). In addition to this, low demand, unequal wage payment, gender division of labor, collateral problems, and gender-based violence influence respondent's livelihood diversification strategies. All in all, it could be concluded that the majority of rural women-headed households in the study area relied mainly on farming activities as their main livelihood strategies by sharecropping their farmland to other farmers and had no access to resources that are pertinent for livelihood diversifications. Therefore, both government and non –government institutions should focus on assets building, providing non-farm and off-farm employment opportunities, awareness, and training that improve the livelihood of rural women households. Keywords: Livelihood, Livelihood strategies, diversification, farm, non-farm, off-farm 1 Chapter One