Shelter issues and solutions in Hawassa

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Author(s)
Grant, E. et al.
Publication language
English
Pages
8pp
Date published
01 Jan 2019
Type
Research, reports and studies
Keywords
Poverty, Shelter and housing, Urban
Countries
Ethiopia
Organisations
IIED

As Hawassa’s population expands rapidly to accommodate thousands of new workers in the Industrial Park - a vast Special Economic Zone run by the Ethiopian Industrial Parks Development Corporation - demand for shelter is acute. With no obvious solution in hand, the city’s residents and authorities are - by default - experimenting with different shelter models. These range from cooperative housing associations and Public Private Partnerships at the ‘formal’ end of the scale, to incentivising construction of additional bedrooms (microfinance-funded incremental housing units) and rapidly expanding informal settlements at the other. Meanwhile, as a new political settlement is forged nationally and locally, there are real opportunities to make shelter a priority issue. In this dynamic context, housing and urban development policy - including equitable compensation for re-locations, construction of affordable housing, and citizenstate dialogue - could constitute a major contribution to a new social policy.