Rapid urban expansion and the challenge of pro-poor housing in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (original) (raw)
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AFFORDABLE HOUSING: PRACTICES AND PROSPECTS OF HOUSE SUPPLY IN ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA
The city of Addis Ababa is burdened with both political and socio-economic activities of the country. People are flooding from all over the nation for employment, education, business and other reasons. Providing affordable houses for the rapidly increasing demand has become a challenge. It is demanding a solution more than building houses in the city. Even building houses by itself has its own bottlenecks such as gaps in project management and financial access. The integrated housing development program has brought some important insights. It was successful to some extent of its objectives. However, it lags far behind from the soaring demand of Addis Ababa residents for affordable housing. If continues in the same way or worse, the program won’t be relevant anymore to benefit the poor and even the middle-income community members. The heavy burden of affordable housing provision can never be alleviated by whatever good done in the city. In contrary, the investment in the city is attracting more people and hence more demand, for the vicious circle to continue. Thus, all stakeholders need to assume their responsibility for robust, integrated and nationwide effort, so as to guide urbanization for its optimal benefit. This paper analyzes the practices and prospects of affordable housing in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. At the end, it proposed recommendations that are drawn from the research findings.
Ethiopia, like other developing nations, is striving to improve the life of its urban dwellers and Addis Ababa, the capital city, is receiving special attention to bring it up to standards in the continent. At 125 years old, the city suffers from severe housing shortage and is characterized by poor housing, infrastructural and neighborhood conditions. Considering the housing agenda as uppermost of the urban development challenge the city administration initiated a program to build several thousand homes based on the condominium concept for different categories of income groups. The initial target of the program, though, was the low income and lower middle income groups. Eleven years have passed since the program commenced in 2004. Needless to mention, even though home ownership has grown phenomenally, the price of a unit of condominium house has risen dangerously over the period. This article is based on ongoing doctoral study and looks at the affordability challenges of the condominium housing scheme, particularly regarding the poor slum dwellers and considers possible alternative means to tackle the issue. The specific study site is the Gofa-Mebrat Hail Condominium in Nefas Silk-Lafto Sub-city of Addis Ababa. The article gives a background account of the procedures followed by the researcher in the study: descriptive and analytical research methods employed, numerical and non-numerical data collected, questionnaires deployed for the household survey, interviews conducted, and relevant observations made. Moreover, secondary sources of information were available to aid analysis and corroborate findings. The most critical finding of the study was that the affordability challenge was, barring free offers or heavy subsidization, beyond prudent financial amelioration and that the only way to keep the poor slum dwellers housed was for them to pay a monthly housing mortgage installment dictated, largely, by a formula based on their ability-to-pay. Introduction This article is based on findings from ongoing doctoral research into the socio-economics of condominium housing development in Addis Ababa City, using the Gofa-Mebrat Hail Scheme as case study. Rapid population growth in cities has been cited by many researchers and scholars as the main challenge of the developing world. Earlier studies put the rate of city growth variably between 2 to 10 percent a year (Stephen K. Mayo; Stephen Malpezzi; David J. Gross, 1986). Unprecedented growth in urban areas coupled with severe
2010
Design considerations remain significant in low cost housing projects in both developed and developing countries; which are currently faced by challenges of shelter provision for everyone including the urban poor; due to unprecedented increase in rates of urban migration and urbanization. Ethiopia, particularly Addis Ababa city has not been spared. The city administration launched grand low cost housing projects through the Integrated Housing Development Programme (IHDP) in 2006. This study sought to unveil the significance of design considerations in low cost housing provision thorough the IHDP and the extent to which the Addis Ababa Administration had considered this relevant. The research made use of detailed case analysis of condominium housing on 103 sites of Addis Ababa City using primary and secondary data sources such as questionnaires, interviews, the Delphi technique and document analysis. Qualitative and quantitative data were produced. This research revealed that although the city administration has made great strides in low cost housing provision, there were omissions in the implementation of housing designs considerations with regards technical issues, people's culture, the needs and interests of the urban poor. As such the research recommends that the city administration should strengthen participation of beneficiaries in projects that affect them directly; and that building codes and policies in housing be enforced and monitored for sustainable housing provisioning; and prosperity of the poor living in cities.
Journal of Urban History
The article presents the reasons for which the issue of providing housing to low-income citizens has been a real challenge in Addis Ababa during the recent years and will continue to be, given that its population is growing extremely fast. It examines the tensions between the universal aspirations and the local realities in the case of some of Ethiopia’s most ambitious mass pro-poor housing schemes, such as the “Addis Ababa Grand Housing Program” (AAGHP), which was launched in 2004 and was integrated in the “Integrated Housing Development Program” (IHDP) in 2006. The article argues that the quotidian practices of communities and their socio-economic and cultural characteristics are related to the spatial attributes of co-housing practices. Drawing upon the idea that there is a mutual correspondence between social and spatial structures, it places particular emphasis on the analysis of the IHDP and aims to show that to shape strategies that take into account the social and cultural aspects of daily life of the poor citizens of Addis Ababa, it is pivotal to invite them to take part in the decision-making processes regarding their resettlement. Departing from the fact that a large percentage of the housing supply in Addis Ababa consists of informal unplanned housing, the article also compares the commoning practices in kebele houses and condominium units. The former refers to the legal informal housing units owned by the government and rented to their dwellers, whereas the latter concerns the housing blocks built in the framework of the IHDP for the resettlement of the kebele dwellers. The article analyzes these processes of resettlement, shedding light of the fact that kebele houses were located at the inner city, whereas the condominiums are located in the suburbs. Despite the fact that the living conditions in the condominium units are of a much higher quality than those in the kebele houses, their design underestimated or even neglected the role of the commoning practices. The article highlights the advantages of commoning practices in architecture and urban planning, and how the implementation of participation-oriented solutions can respond to the difficulties of providing housing. It argues that understanding the significance of the endeavors that take into account the opinions of dwellers during the phase of decision-making goes hand in hand with considering commoning practices as a source of architecture and urban planning frameworks for low-cost housing in this specific context. The key argument of the article is that urban planning and architecture solutions in Addis Ababa should be based on the principles of the so-called “negotiated planning” approach, which implies a close analysis of the interconnections between planning, infrastructure, and land.
Urban growth and the housing problem in Ethiopia
Cities, 1985
This article briefly examines the pre-1974 situation in Ethiopia and the impact of post-1974 government policies and programmes Implemented In the aftermath of the revolution on urban growth, the structure of the national urban system, and the provision of urban social infrastructure, particularly urban housing. It concludes that, although reforms in rural and urban areas may have brought substantial redistribution of income, the living standards of the urban poor have not improved because of wage and salary freezes, price rises, and shortages of basic necessities such as food, housing and jobs .
2015
One decade ago in the capital city of Ethiopia, Addis Ababa, more than 80% of its four million inhabitants lived in the so-called kebele houses, which are the local variant of a well-known urban figure, the slum. In order to cope with the housing backlog sparked by the need to replace the dilapidated kebele houses, to accommodate the city’s natural growth, and to deal with the massive rural-urban migration, the government created in the mid-2000s the Integrated Housing Development Programme (IHDP). This program aimed at building throughout the country 360,000 dwelling units in five years based on a standard mid-rise housing block type that eventually became ubiquitous, especially in Addis Ababa’s built landscape. Over the last decade, the IHDP actually created “only” an average of 35,000 new flats per year, half of the expected turn out. In any case, “the condominiums”, as they are commonly known, have succeeded in upgrading the material living conditions of thousands of people. How...
reseaarch article, 2022
Even though situational factors are predominantly determining the housing scenario of urban residents, individual factors are the most essential elements that play a vital role in the housing development of urban residents. The main objective of this study was to investigate socio-demographic and socio-economic factors that contributed to urban housing development in Sebeta town, Ethiopia. To achieve the research objective, the explanatory mixed-method sequential research design was employed where quantitative data were collected from 384 respondents who were randomly selected, whereas qualitative data were collected via in-depth interviews and focus group discussion. Research findings confirmed that socio-demographic and socio-economic characteristics were major determining factors of urban housing development. Socio-demographic and socio-economic dynamics associated with individual characteristics were found to cause variation in housing statuses among urban residents. This implies, in addition to structural challenges, individualistic factors of urban residents affect their housing choices. It was identified that differences in gender, migration status, ethnic background, income class, educational status, and occupational backgrounds were responsible factors for housing status discrepancy in the study area. The authors came up with the conclusion that socio-demographic and socio-economic factors are the most remarkable features, which determine the housing development of residents by accompanying structural factors. The authors would recommend that the housing development of urban residents needs the prerequisite of strengthening socio-demographic dynamism and socio-economic empowerment of the urban poor.
1 ABSTRACT Design considerations remain significant in low cost housing projects in both developed and developing countries; which are currently faced by challenges of shelter provision for everyone including the urban poor; due to unprecedented increase in rates of urban migration and urbanization. Ethiopia, particularly Addis Ababa city has not been spared. The city administration launched grand low cost housing projects through the Integrated Housing Development Programme (IHDP) in 2006. This study sought to unveil the significance of design considerations in low cost housing provision thorough the IHDP and the extent to which the Addis Ababa Administration had considered this relevant. The research made use of detailed case analysis of condominium housing on 103 sites of Addis Ababa City using primary and secondary data sources such as questionnaires, interviews, the Delphi technique and document analysis. Qualitative and quantitative data were produced. This research revealed t...