The Socio-Economic and Cultural Effects of Urban Development in Addis Ababa: A Case Study of the Belt Highway Project
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Date
2005-06
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AAU
Abstract
This thesis is about soc io-economic and cul tural crfects of urban dcve lopllleni proJ ccl -the be lt hi ghway
constructi on- In Add is Ab~ ba. The project is a mega construction project that displaced households and
business centers. It had put in place a fasc inating hi ghway designed to miti gat e trai'fic congesti on in the
city core .It was also meant to enhance urban land usc at the peri -urban areas.
I se lected the topic aft er going thro ugh relevant literalU re bUlh to avo id dlipl c~ ll\ln ~I d al the same
time to get insights from prev iolls works. Accord ingly, I kid i'llI'mli LllL'd tllJ'l'l' spcci lic ubjcc tl ves I'or the
thesis. I in tended to analyze the project cl'l'ccts on the dispLt ced households espec iJll y the poor: to exa ll1ll1e
the adaptive strategies devised loca ll y to cope up with unde sired projec t elTecls: and to assess the
impli cati ons of the project in li ght or the overall urban deve lopment ac ti viti es In Add is Ababa. The
study is a quali ta ti ve research in which lusecl mul tiple da ta co ll ec tion methods. I did not rely on any single
data coll ection technique. Instead, [ tri ed to tri angul ate one with the other.
The study found out that although the road construction had successfull y intercepted signi li cant tranic, it
had bro ught considerab le soc io-economi c and cultural disru pt ions. The undesired elTec ts we re attributed
large ly to poor project design that had little room 1'0 1' int sc lin lr y project planning ll1 d loca l
peopl e's parti cipation .Even then , the projec t <Jfrected poor households , pe rsons liv ing with disab ilities
and old persons 1110re th <J n others. The poor displaced households became easy prey to the undesired
effects due to land tenure re ed . Persons li vi ng with disabil iti es and old pe rsons wcre not in good
terms with highway beca use the overindulgence with enginee ring precision c lptlJJ'eci most o r the
pro ject designers' attenti on.
The pro ject affected peop le however, dev ised certJin cop ing mec hanisms \\' ith Ihe undesired elTec ts.
Adapti ve responses vary based on the naturc ol'the elTec ts k it by the people . It r~ es l'J'llm opc n pro tests
aga inst the design of' the projec t to other multiple adapt ive responses. The stu dy had also draw n both
theoreti ca l and empirical impli cations of the deve lopment project. Impoverishment Risk Rcconstruction
Model was fo und to have strong predictive importance to avert the li kely negati ve project effects as we ll
as the correcti ve measures to reconstruct the lost resource base and disrupted socia l li fe of the project
affec ted people. [nline with this theoreti ca l Impli cation , the hi ghway project had practi ca l implications
that deve lopment is a catc hy word that does not necessaril y give its compassionJte hand to the
despe rate poor in orde r to pull them out of pove rt y. With rcga rd to the spatia l conligurat ion of the soc io economi c forces in the urban space, the sector model provides onl y supplemcntary explanations. Human
settl ements and urban land use in the city are better understood when historica l . po litica l and soc io cultural fac tors were taken into consideration