Ethiopia is the second-most populous country in Africa. While the level of urbanization is estimated to be one of the lowest in Africa, the country is registering a high annual urban growth rate of 5.3 percent, mainly driven by rural-urban migration. The urban population is expected to triple between 2010 and 2040, reaching 37 percent in 2050.
The urban population growth and rapid urbanization provide a huge opportunity to shift the structure and location of economic activity from rural agriculture to a more diversified urban industrial and service sector.
But this would only be possible when the urbanization is managed properly. If not, rapid urban population growth would remain a challenge to ensure environmental safety and provide jobs, infrastructure, services, and housing in urban areas. Thus, fostering planned urbanization is the best way to manage the balance of the resources and the populations living in urban areas.
Recently, Urban Development and Construction Minister in collaboration with UN-Habitat organized the National Urban Agenda Partners’ Platform to foster and make sure safe and environmental urbanization in Ethiopia. The Platform brought key players working on the shared agenda.
Speaking on the occasion, Engineer Aisha Mohammed, Urban Development and Construction Minister said making urbanization a national priority will accelerate Ethiopia’s effort towards sustainable urban development.
Aisha also said that the Platform could prevent overlapping activities by setting coordination mechanisms and promoting communication between all involved actors thereby creating potential synergies. “Initiating and strengthening the coordination among urban sectors and the government through a platform will result in success and efficiency.”
The ministry has to work closely with concerned bodies to support central and local governments in the identification of proper solutions to fostering sustainable urban development. For this to happen, she said, it has prepared a ten-year urbanization and human settlements plan and strategy.
As to Aisha, the Ministry has also been making serious discussions with development partners and stakeholders to improve housing, participatory planning, land use management, urban resilience, rural-urban linkages, regional planning, and urban governance. Its particular focus has been on the linkages between urbanization and development. “Thus, the plan and strategy are expected to deliver solutions for the complicated problems of urbanization in the country, Engineer Aisha said.
Enhanced coordination among stakeholders will optimize resources and capacities and allow to effectively tackling the challenges of urban planning and management in the country. It will also promote synergies, concrete collaborations and reduces duplication of the effort and initiatives.
In this regard, the Platform opened the opportunity to relevant government institutions to understand, appreciate, monitor and coordinate the support as well as interventions of donors and development partners.
“Through this platform, the government and development partners will work together to implement a single strategy for sustainable urbanization according to the global and national frameworks,” the Minister said.
Aklilu Fekreselassie, UN-Habitat Manager in Ethiopia said that in this modern era if urbanization goes wrong, everything goes wrong.
“Thus, we need to deal with it carefully,” he said. “People in urban areas need adequate housing, infrastructure, and services. It is with the purpose of meeting these needs that the UN-Habitat is supporting the Ethiopia government in various ways.”
Annika Nordin Jayawardena, Deputy Head of Mission and Head of Development Cooperation, Embassy of Sweden said on her part that hopefulness, transparency, joint collaboration as well as joint synergies have to be encouraged. This platform is an outlet for looking better, effective urbanization planning and resource mobilization. “Now we are in line to play a constructive role for the implementation of planned urbanization in Ethiopia.”
The Ethiopian Herald November7, 2019
BY MULATU BELACHEW
