Factors influencing affected group participation in urban redevelopment in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

The city administration of Addis Ababa is undertaking the Senga Tera-Fird Bet I and other 14 urban redevelopment projects. However, so far no study has been conducted that critically analyzes affected group participation in redevelopment process in Addis Ababa. This study, therefore, aims to assess the factors that facilitate or hinder affected group participation in urban redevelopment process in Addis Ababa by taking Senga Tera-Fird Bet I project as a case study. The study employed an indepth interview with 26 key informants, desk review of relevant publications and archival research of official records. The findings were analyzed using both qualitative and quantitative methods of analysis. The study revealed that the Senga Tera-Fird Bet I project was the first urban redevelopment exercise undertaken by the new City Administration with determination to make it more participatory. The implementation of the project was delegated to the Sub-city with close follow-up of the senior City officials. The project office at the Sub-city level was sufficiently staffed, but some of its staff lacks communication skills and lack mandate to negotiate. The planning process, however, was expert driven with one-way information flow through survey. The public consultation has started immediately after the finalization of the Local Development Plan with a view of convincing the project to the public. Few concerns of the public such as affordability, job creation and revision of compensation estimate were partially met. There were three organized groups of the residents, i.e. the public rental housing, private homeowners and commercial premise renters form government representative committee. Except the first one the later two were able to influence the City Government to consider their concerns at least partially. This was mainly due the leadership capacity, organizing and resource mobilizing capacities of the two committees. The study has also found out that the project has benefited some and at the same time it has also adversely affected the livelihood of others particularly those who went to other public rental housing. The study found out that the affected group and the government have different opinions about the outputs of the participation. The majority of the government officials believed that the project was highly demand responsive, highly efficient and highly effective; while the majority of informants from the affected group perceived it otherwise. The project resulted in breakdown of social network of the key informants of the study and resulted in resettling of many residents in areas that will soon be demolished. On the other hand the project gave on-job training for the Sub-city and City Administration, however, the new guideline gives less room for participation. Based on the findings, the study concluded that political leadership by City and Sub-city officials, institutional arrangement and organizational and resource mobilizing capacities of the residents' representative groups has facilitated the participation process. However, the major emphasis given for beautification of the area, starting of consultation during implementation, the consultative level of the resident participation, instrumental view of participation and technocratic nature of the planning process has negatively affected the participation process. In addition, the project was viewed as less uniform in terms of its coverage, less responsive, less efficient in use of resources, less effective in achieving its objective and less sustainable by some sections of the affected group that indicates less effectiveness of the participation process. Based on this the study proposed- emphasis on improving the living and housing conditions of slum dwellers, capacity building of actors involved, active participation of all relevant stakeholders, more flexibility in implementation and participatory planning of resettlement plan when it is a must.