Religion, Redistribution and Poverty Alleviation: The Case of “Zakah‟ in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Recent interests in poverty alleviation endeavours have gone beyond mainstream mechanisms to include religious dimension in their undertakings. In response to such initiatives, this research attempts to explore the extent to which the religious practice, Zakah, contributes to poverty alleviation in the city of Addis Ababa. Its findings are based on a case study carried out during the six weeks of field work. It proves the initial assumption that Zakah contributes to poverty alleviation, though at a partial level. However, it also found that it has some limitations that might affect its potential. In general, it concludes that Zakah does contribute to poverty alleviation in Addis Ababa and further suggests some ways of revising the practice so as to boost its role as a poverty alleviation tool. Drawing from this, it infers religion in general attributes to poverty alleviation and thus to development.