The construction or presence of architecturally well designed and artistically decorated buildings alone cannot be taken as an instance of success as one can see it from the parameters of urban development.
Promoting the culture of stewardship for the environment is a principal and integral part in urban development policy. Addis Ababa is a city which is rapidly progressing in terms of buildings, infrastructure. However, the concern that has been given for the protection of the environment is in question.
The city, which is the capital of the country, a seat of the African Union, Economic Commission for Africa and other diplomatic missions has been suffering from poor wastes management and disintegrated sewerage system. This is manifested within the drainage systems of the rivers and streams crossing the city. Without facing any difficulty, it is easy to witness the pollution of the city’s rivers. The situation has remained to be an age long problem to delinquent of the nation’s image building.
Nonetheless, the government has recently introduced an ambitious riverside project which is a threeyear initiative of the Prime Minister of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, Abiy Ahmed. The ‘Beautifying Sheger Project’, Sheger being the other name of Addis, will run along the two biggest rivers in Addis Ababa – stretching 23.8kms and 27.5kms respectively – all the way from the mountains of Entoto through to AkakiRiver.
“The project essentially aims to lift the image and potential of the capital with the goal of creating many jobs in the project phase, it also aims to create riverside economies, increase urban tourism, and provide the city’s residents with areas of respite,” the PM’s official social media pages said. The project further aims to elevate the city to a site of urban tourism leveraging on rehabilitation of the aforementioned water bodies.
enhance the well-being of city dwellers by putting river flooding in check and creating public spaces, parks, bicycle paths and walkways along the river banks, enable the aspiration of a green economy by expanding green spaces and creating related services economies.
As documents from the PM office indicate, impacts expected from the project are specifically: draw international and domestic tourism into the capital with the view of a healthy atmosphere for visitors; create employment for teeming youth and other professionals while at it boost the economies that will serve persons who come into contact with the project, increase the real estate value of current and future property development alongside the river project and to enhance green coverage and build the image of Addis Ababa as a city reflecting its name – New Flower.
The project will also be all the better for the country’s aviation industry. Last year, Bole International Airport, Africa’s biggest airline operator, has been named the gateway for air traffic into the continent beating Dubai to the accolade. Travel consultancy ForwardKeys said Addis Ababa airport had increased the number of international transfer passengers to sub-Saharan Africa for five years in a row, and in 2018 had surpassed Dubai, one of the world’s busiest airports, as the transfer hub for longhaul travel to the region.
Analysing data from travel booking systems that record 17 million flight bookings a day, Forward Keys found the number of long-haul transfers to sub-Saharan Africa via Addis Ababa jumped by 85 percent from 2013 to 2017. Transfers via Dubai over the same period rose by 31 percent. As of November 2018, Addis Ababa’s growth was 18 percent, versus 3 percent for Dubai.
Dubai has long been a major global air travel hub because it is the base of Gulf carrier Emirates Ethiopian Airlines, the country’s most successful state company, is accelerating a 15-year strategy it launched in 2010 to win black market share on routes to and from Africa that are dominated by Turkish Airlines and Emirates.
It is also weaving a patchwork of new African routes to rapidly expanding and lucrative Asian markets. ForwardKeys also attributed the recent jump in bookings via Addis Ababa in part to a positive international response to the broad reforms introduced by Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who came to power in April and has upended politics in the Horn of Africa country of around 105 million people. And the new initiatives would help build a very clean and attractive city so that the number of people or travelers coming to Ethiopia would further increase.
The Ethiopian Herald, May 9/2019
BY LAKACHEW ATINAFU
