GA ISIG Study Tour 2013 (Ethiopia)

2. The urbanisation of Addis Ababa

Summary Curriculum Links - A level

Locational knowledge
Addis Ababa’s Integrated Housing Development Programme IHDP (condominium Urbanisation
housing) was launched in 2004 by the city municipal authority and was aimed at Changing urban
upgrading the inner parts of the city. The programme aimed to construct 400,000 landscapes
housing units along with their associated infrastructure. The units were to take the The impact of
form of condominiums, creating affordable low-cost, high-density housing in the city. development
They were to be available in a number of different sizes to meet different needs (e.g. Rural-urban migration
Social political tensions
studio units, three bedroom units, etc.). The programme specifically targeted the
Managing regeneration
informal settlements and housing would be allocated using a heavily over-subscribed
Sustainable cities
public lottery. The plan is to clear all informal settlements from Addis Ababa by 2020.

The United Nations view this programme as being a highly effective means of dealing Key Words
with Addis Ababa’s housing problem. However, there are a number of dissenting Urbanisation
Condominium
voices, particularly in the local media. For example, in the first year of the programme,
Birr
only 31 thousand housing units had been built. The programme was also criticised in its
Informal settlements
early years for being used as a political tool, serving only those who are members of
the ruling party, and for being focused on the settlements on the edge of the city.
Affordability has been a constant challenge to this programme. This is especially true Questions to consider
for female-headed households, many of whom cannot afford the down-payment to
secure housing. There has also been debate about levels of compensation and the 1. What evidence is there
need for forced evictions. that the development of
There is, however, evidence that the authorities have made good progress through this Addis Ababa is following a
initiative. By November 2012, the government had spent more than 15.4 billion birr plan?
(around £550m) in building 207,000 housing units nationwide of which 140,000 were
2. What impact has the
located in Addis Ababa and built at a cost of 7.8 billion birr (£280 million approx.). The
development of the
government also planned to build an additional 35,000 condominium houses in 2013,
Sheraton hotel had on the
and a further 170,000 between 2013 and 2016.
Aranda and Kirkos areas of
However, the scheme has also had difficulties. The biggest of all problems, facing the city?
almost all of the existing condominium sites, is a chronic lack of infrastructure with
some have not being connected to systems such as the sewerage network. Questions 3. What evidence is there
have been raised about the quality of materials, e.g. water pipes have rusted as they that government-led or
have been left idle for weeks before occupants have moved in. There are also very few any other form of slum
green spaces around the condominiums or communal spaces. Pavements and development (e.g. the
walkways around the condominiums have been left unpaved. Some of the condominiums
condominiums on the edge of the city are also poorly connected to the rest of the city, programme) is resulting in
particularly in terms of transport connections. The Addis Ababa new light rail system, improved standards of
which opened in September 2016, has helped overcome some of these problems, but
living for the inhabitants
not all of them.
of Addis Ababa?

4. How sustainable are the

improvements that are
being made to Addis
Ababa’s urban landscape?

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Figure 2. New condominiums in Addis Ababa [August 2013] ©Szymon Sawicki

Note the satellite dishes and the temporary shops set up to meet local needs. A variety of transport methods
including the horses and the person on foot are immediately evident.

Background information provided Study Tour participant by Szymon Sawicki

Introduction

The statistics available on urbanisation rates in Ethiopia are a little patchy, largely due to infrequent censuses of the
population – the most recent were in 1994 and 2007. This means that some of the numbers quoted in research
papers cannot be wholly trusted and should be treated as underestimates.

Ethiopia it is the second most populous, but the least urbanised, country in sub-Saharan Africa. In the late 1980s,
only about 11% of the population lived in settlements of over 2,000 people. By the census of 2007 this had increased
to about 15%. These low rates are ascribed to the Ethiopian traditional way of life (rural, based on agriculture – 80%
of the population). Addis Ababa is by far the largest city, followed by Dire Dawa, 274,000, Mek’ele, 272,000 and
Adama, 263,000.

Addis Ababa has an estimated population of approximately 3.3 million with annual growth rate of 3.8%. This means
it will double every 19 years. Some commentators believe that Addis Ababa may triple in size over the next 30 years
due to rates of rural-urban migration and the natural rate of increase in the city. The city covers an area of 527km2
(54,000 ha) and has a population density of 5,165 people/km2 (national average = 83/ km2). Up to 80% of the
population is said to live in slum conditions. The living conditions are exacerbated by:

 Only 60% of the city’s water demand is met and up to 40% of water is wasted due to leaky pipes and
inadequate infrastructure.
 The city only has 110km of sewers which constitute only 4% of the city’s required network. In 1994, Addis
Ababa was the only city in Ethiopia with a sewerage system.
 Only 65% of the city’s waste is collected by the council and the rest is disposed of through informal means.

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 Urban poverty is endemic and rates of unemployment are high, with one in three unemployed in Addis
Ababa.
 70% of the road network in the capital is made of gravel.

Urban development in Ethiopia

Ethiopia’s slums have a long history and can be traced back to a lack of capacity and leadership within the
government. The problems can be traced back to the Italian occupation of Ethiopia, when the colonial power did
little to implement coherent development plans in the country. Throughout the mid to late C20th, the government
of Ethiopia was focused on rural development, particularly the policy of development via agriculture led
industrialisation. Progress in urban development has been piecemeal at best. In 1975 the Derg government (Marxist
military junta) nationalised urban land and rental housing, creating a highly centralised system which exacerbated
the problems. The kebeles (housing collectives) could not afford to maintain the properties due to the low rents and
land effectively became ownerless, encouraging the development of informal settlements.

It was not until 2002-03 that there was a major reorganisation of the system, which devolved more powers to local
authorities (woredas). Since then, these have had a freer role to play in urban development and have attempted to
deal with the housing shortages affecting Ethiopia’s cities. However, the government retains a high degree of control
over land use and design through economic controls, ministerial representation and appointment of council
members. In 2002, the Sustainable Development and Poverty Reduction Program (SDPRP I) was introduced, which
had the objectives of reducing urban poverty, strengthening urban governance and improving housing. This was
replaced by the Plan for Accelerated and Sustained Development to End Poverty (PASDEP) in 2005. It was only in
March 2005 that a comprehensive national urban development policy (the National Urban Development Policy
Framework) was developed. However, it appears that this has not yet been formally ratified or implemented. Some
progress has been made in recent years, with the implementation of the Federal Integrated Housing Development
Programme (IHDP) – see below for details. However, due to the low starting point and with a low tax base to work
with, very limited progress has been made. The private sector has only started to become involved in urban
regeneration in the country over the last few years.

The situation in Addis Ababa (see map at end)

Given the overall history of urban development in Ethiopia, it is interesting to note that at first glance, Addis Ababa
can give the impression of being quite a well-developed city. There are increasing numbers of high-rise shopping
centres, office blocks and luxurious hotels that have developed along many of the main thoroughfares through the
city. There is also now a rapid transit rail system that crosses the city. These developments, however, hide the poor
living conditions in the large, unplanned residential areas between the main roads.

Addis Ababa is a fast-growing city that is overwhelmed by many problems, including extensive urban poverty,
joblessness, inadequate housing, severe overcrowding, congestion and underdeveloped infrastructure. Ethiopia also
has a long history of people not having formal access to land. Since the 1970s, for example, Addis Ababa has
witnessed an acute shortage of residential housing, which has worsened as the urban population has increased due
to a mix of rapid natural increase and high rates of rural-urban migration leading to a growth rate approaching 4%
per year. At the same time, the lack of investment in housing has led to a rapid degradation of the existing housing
stock in the city. The development of slums in Addis Ababa is, unlike other examples from other countries, not
simply a result of urban poverty. This means that the slums of Addis Ababa are not exclusively the preserve of the
urban poor.

The development of informal settlements or slums in the city can, therefore, be seen as an outcome of these
problems. Formal mechanisms to create homes and employment are inadequate. Most residents are too poor to
build their own homes and so informal ‘solutions’ have emerged over time. These include slum areas characterised
by low living standards e.g. lacking access to an improved water supply and sanitation; poor durability of housing
and insecure tenure and informal settlements. In the urban core, 60% of housing is said to be of slum-standard and
25% is thought to be informally built. This means that the city-scape of Addis Ababa is characterised by a patchwork

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of development where high-grade residential buildings sit cheek-by-jowl with both slum areas and areas of informal
settlement. This pattern is repeated across Ethiopia, making the urban landscapes of this country very different to
those found in other parts of Africa such as Nairobi, Kenya where Kibera is one of many slum areas.

The living conditions of the urban poor

The quality of the housing stock in the slum areas of the city is low. Roofs are invariably made out of corrugated iron
and are rusty giving the slums their local name of ‘the chocolate roofs’. 50% have mud or earthen floors.
Furthermore, 97% of the housing stock in only single storey. In Ethiopia, a survey in 2007 found that 80% of the
country’s urban population lives in slums that fail to meet basic sanitary benchmarks. The non-governmental
organisation Action Professionals’ Association for the People (APAP) found the overwhelming majority of housing
units in towns and cities were poorly constructed and four-fifths were made out of mud and wood (‘chika’ houses).
More than 40% have no more than one room, while 42 per cent lack toilets and 39% are without kitchens. While
apartments are springing up in large parts of the Ethiopian capital, they are beyond the price range of most slum-
dwellers.

A specific example of the living conditions can be seen in the Kechene district, home to nearly 50,000 people with
high levels of poverty, poor housing and illiteracy. Sanitation is a particular problem as only 15% of residents have
access to clean drinking water; mainly from communal taps. There are very few toilets, resulting in people using
plastic bags for this purpose which then get thrown into the streets. This lack of sanitation leads to the spread of
diseases such as cholera, typhoid, and childhood diarrhoea; one of the leading causes of death in children (child
mortality = 109/1000 live births). These conditions are easily preventable with good sanitation and access to healthy
drinking water.

Initiatives to improve living conditions in Addis Ababa

There have been various attempts made to address these issues including levelling the Tekle Haimanot slum in inner
Addis in the 1960s. Only under the Meles regime (1995-2012) was there a concerted effort to upgrade the Addis
slums. Urban development policy in the city has been characterized as being a mix of negligence, eviction, clearance
and resettlement. A more recent example of forced clearances is that of the Bole Bulbula area (next to the airport) in
August 2002. Only in the last few years, have more concerted efforts been made to upgrade the housing of Addis
Ababa, particularly the Integrated Housing Development Programme (IHDP), from which the city has particularly
benefited.

Any programme dealing with slum upgrading in Addis Ababa has to deal with several problems, including gaps in
policy development; institutional or organizational weaknesses which lead to managerial, programming and
operational shortcomings; and problems in project design, implementation and supervision. Lack of effective
coordination and experience sharing among the participating stakeholders has also plagued slum improvement
programs. There are a number of programmes currently underway which are trying to improve the standard of living
conditions for the urban poor in the city.

On visiting the city, we were surprised to note the large areas of slums that have been cleared in areas, including
those surrounding the Sheraton hotel. These areas were left empty, but surrounded by hordings made of corrugated
iron and painted green and yellow. The hordings were clearly installed to prevent residents from re-colonising the
cleared areas. They had been effective to a large extent; with the cleared areas showing evidence of having been
empty for a certain amount of time (e.g. plants and small shrubs were starting to grow). In places the local residents
have found their way into some of the fenced off areas, though it did not appear that they felt secure enough to
rebuild houses in these areas.

The 40/60 project

In 2012, the government announced a large-scale housing construction project called 40/60, in which housing
beneficiaries are asked to deposit 40% of the value of the house in advance with the remaining 60% expected to be
covered by the government as a long term loan to be paid by the beneficiaries at a later stage. Most of the 165,000

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people currently registered for houses have been saving every month and 13,000 have paid in full. According to the
Addis Ababa Saving Houses Development Enterprise, more than 1,292 condominium houses have been finalized
including those at Sengatera and Crown-Akaki-Kaliti. Currently (November 2016), there are 38,790 condominium
units under construction on 13 sites. Most are behind schedule.

The Sheraton hotel

An example of private sector led urban regeneration is that of the controversial Sheraton hotel development. The
hotel was built in 1998 and resulted in the relocation of approximately 12,600 people from the Arada area of Addis
Ababa. According to some sources, the original development was seen as being quite beneficial to the residents who
were moved, with adequate compensation to new housing in the Gerji area on the edge of the city. In 2006, it was
agreed that the hotel could be expanded, resulting in the eviction of a further 16,600 residents from the Arada and
Kirkos (aka Cherkos) areas of the city. This development has been resisted by residents, who have claimed that the
compensation offered is inadequate, especially as they are expected to contribute 20% of the value towards their
new condominium housing which most cannot afford.

NGO-led projects

Only a few NGOs such as CARE, Oxfam, the Rotary Club and the Norwegian branch of Save the Children have
involved themselves with urban redevelopment in Ethiopia. One mitigating factor is that NGOs have been operating
in an atmosphere of uncertainty, with the lack of specific legislation to regulate their activities compounded by the
close scrutiny they have been kept under by the government. The NGO projects have tended to focus on improving
infrastructure, e.g. access to clean water and sanitation, but some have been involved in small-scale housing projects
(1,000-1,500 units).

Godana – street people

The poorest of the poor in Ethiopia are known as godana or street people. Their lives are played out on the streets
and they can be seen sleeping out on the roadsides. A significant number of these are children (aka underground
children), who can be found living on the streets or in the sewers and tunnels under the city. They are transient,
being constantly moved on by the police. UNICEF estimated at one point that there were over 100,000 street
children in Addis Ababa. They are a group of interest as they are the poorest and most vulnerable of the various
different groups that inhabit the slums and informal settlements of the city.

The children often organise themselves into gangs led by one of the older children (joviro – leader) and operate as
collectives, sharing out all they have/find amongst the members of the group. The underground children survive by
selling small items at traffic lights or doing odd jobs for restaurants for leftovers or scraps of food. Among the
reasons for the high numbers of street children are extreme poverty, hunger, violent conflict and drought in rural
areas. Often, the children come without families, orphaned by disease, escaping abusive and neglectful parents,
captivated by tales of wealth and opportunity in the big city.

When visiting the city, we did not see many godana on the streets. We were informed by our guide that the
government had instituted policies to try to deal with this issue, but the details of this were unclear. That said, when
touring the country, we saw larger numbers of godana in other cities, including Gondar.

References

AMREF. (2011) A Mother’s Story. Kechene Slum. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=726dZcNlrPw

Angelova, K. (2012) Dramatic photos show how rough life is in Addis Ababa.http://www.businessinsider.com/life-in-
addis-ababa-ethiopia-photos-2012-10?op=1

BBC. (2009) In Pictures – Underground Children.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/06/africa_underground_children/html/4.stm

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Heisel, F. (2012) Disappearing Spaces. A Day in Addis Ababa's informal city (Kebele Houses)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZszL92K8vs

Heisel, F. (2012) Emerging Spaces. A Day in Addis Ababa’s Condominiums.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WR8YK7lGK8c

Megento, T. L (2013) Inner City Housing and Urban Development – Induced Displacement: Impact on Poor Female-
headed Households in Arada sub-city of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Journal of Sustainable Development in Africa
Volume 15, No.2 http://www.jsd-africa.com/Jsda/Vol15No2-
Spring2013B/PDF/Inner%20City%20Housing%20and%20Urban%20Development.Tebarek%20Lika%20Megento.pdf

Tolon, U. W. (2008) Comparison of Urban Upgrading Projects on Development Cooperation in Ethiopia

http://upcommons.upc.edu/pfc/bitstream/2099.1/6374/8/07.pdf

UN Habitat (2011) Affordable Land and Housing in Africa Report. http://www.scribd.com/doc/102733268/26/Box-

10-Ethiopia%E2%80%99s-Integrated-Housing-Development-Programme-IHDP

Urban core
Sheraton

Very high income

areas
Gate communities
=

Trendy
neighbourhoods
Airport

The location of the old urban core and the growing concentration of wealthy areas on the eastern side of the city.