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Addis Abeba is one of the fastest growing metropolitan
areas, certainly in Ethiopia but also in Africa. The
population of the city during the era of Emperor Menelik,
around 120 years ago, was estimated at 100,000. Within the
span of about 120 years, the population increased
dramatically and stands now at over four million. Rapid
urbanization has absorbed vast land areas, which is now
estimated at 540,000hct.
Addis Abeba is a city of contrasts. It blends many forms of
traditional and modern life coexisting side by side in
relative harmony. It is an anomaly in the African context
with people from all backgrounds and socio-economic levels
intermingling throughout neighbourhoods. It is a city where
neighbourhoods have traditionally been mixed settlements.
Unlike other cities in Africa, and indeed in the world,
Addis Abeba has a unique urban settlement configuration.
It is unique in the sense that both the well-to-do and the
impoverished live together in peace and harmony, with
towering apartments and villas intermingling with slum
settlements. Traditional mud huts in impoverished areas of
particular localities intermingle with high-rise apartments
and villas. Addis Abeba has, therefore avoided the
geographic concentration of slums, and therefore poverty, in
a single location.
While this has the advantage that the city is much safer
than other metropolitan areas, the wide diffusion of slums
around the city has emerged as one of the major challenges
in identifying slums; slums can only be identified at the
neighborhood level.
Slum settlements in Addis Abeba are characterized by a host
of problems, shelter being by far the most serious. In order
to do away with the housing problem, the Government
introduced an innovative housing development program using
low-cost construction technology.
An advance pilot project of the programme, involving the
construction of about 700 housing units, was launched in
2004. The basis of the low-cost technology includes an
economical use of land, cost-effective housing designs,
extensive use of prefabricated construction materials, and
labour intensive technology, among others. Both construction
costs and time were reduced significantly.
Based on the lessons drawn from a pilot project, the
construction of about 50,000 housing units was launched in
2005, with 40pc of the city's budget allocated to the
programme. More than 452,000 applications were made by
residents to buy the low-cost apartments to be constructed
under the programme. Encouraged by initial successes, the
government has now launched a nation-wide programme. The
construction of 400,000 condominiums is underway at an
estimated cost of some 2.5 billion dollars. Addis Abeba
accounts for the larger chunk of this programme.
Housing units are designed for low, middle and high-income
households so that all sections can live together in the
same, or nearby apartment blocks. This is in order to retain
and strengthen the traditional mixed-settlement pattern or
culture. The programme also aims at reducing poverty. It
created jobs for over 40,000 peoples in 2005. About 1,000
small enterprises were also established to supply
construction and other materials for the programme. By
enabling people to become property owners, it enabled not
only middle-income, but particularly low-income residents,
to become financially more independent.
Parallel with the construction programme, the government
also introduced a neighbourhood development initiative which
targets slum areas of the city. It works by mobilizing
communities to work in partnership with the government. The
programme goes hand in hand with decentralization of
political power and the service delivery system down to the
lower tiers of government. Not only does this approach
empower citizens to be responsible for planning and
programming their activities at local levels; it also
ensures good governance and enables and empowers communities
at grass-root levels to efficiently deliver basic municipal
and other services.
Addis Abeba is divided into 10 districts with three tiers
of government: city-level administration; district level
administration; and kebele-level administration. The kebele
is the lowest tier of government. Each district has, on
average, about 10 kebeles. Addis Abeba is therefore divided
into 99 kebeles.
While the city-level administration mainly focuses on
policy-making, capacity building and regulatory tasks,
district and kebele-level executives exercise significant
responsibilities regarding municipal and non-municipal
services, including planning and programming activities.
Districts and kebeles are responsible for the provision of
most municipal and non-municipal functions.
High population growth in the last century resulted in
enormous transformations in land dynamics with continuous
encroachment on the surrounding green areas and massive
environmental degradation. The city government has
programmes, such as "Addis Ecocity", which are slum
upgrading initiatives. It aims at providing a holistic
approach to the many inter-related problems in various
communities, such as providing sanitary facilities, refuse
collection, and social infrastructure, such as schools,
clinics and recreation facilities, which collectively
address the missing links in the social and physical
structures.
It involves a participatory process, whereby residents help
identify their problems and specify their needs.
Rapid population growth, unemployment and poverty, and
environmental degradation in the face of limited management
capacity and resources are the main challenges facing Addis
Abeba as a city in transition towards a mega-city. I believe
that these challenges need to be addressed through an
appropriate urban development policy and strategy, as well
as by forming constructive partnerships with other cities in
Africa, and elsewhere, to learn from best practices.
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