The World Bank’s inclusive development framework plan shows that Addis Ababa would need close to USD 9 billion in the coming ten years period to be a competitive city.
The World Bank document, ‘Addis Ababa’s Strategic Development Framework’ was released late this week with the objective of the plan being to make the biggest city in Ethiopia more sustainable, livable, and inclusive and to make competitive city.
It added that the framework objective aims to; address complex challenges that require integrated interventions, shift the approach from sector specific to spatially integrated challenges and solutions, coordinate multi-sector efforts to maximize development synergies and impacts, indentify prioritized interventions for key binding constraints, and contribute to the city’s 10 year development roadmap towards more competitive, livable, sustainable and inclusive city.
The Framework was built through multiple stakeholder engagement processes, involving more than 100 key sector representatives and experts.
“Addis Ababa is the largest, fast growing, demographic, economic and political center of Ethiopia, leading the country’s socio economic development. While leading Ethiopia’s socio economic growth, Addis Ababa faces significant challenges to cope with rapidly growing demands for jobs, housing, infrastructure as well as increasing hazards and risks, affecting the city’s competitiveness, livability, sustainability, and inclusivity,” the preamble of the document said.
Empower land markets and promote integrated planning, foster interagency collaborative arrangements, enhance sustainable municipal financing, and establish city data governance and management, leveraging digital technology are stated as fundamentals under the framework.
Enhance an enabling business or investment environment, foster growth in high value-added industry clusters using skilled workers and innovation, and connect culture and innovation has been stated as the objective for competitive city pathway.
Under livable city pathway it has targeted to attain enable housing market and upgrade information settlement, improve access to infrastructure and basic services, ensure equitable access and quality of social services, and develop walk-able and green neighborhood.
For sustainable city pathway, it has been stated to improve environmental and ecological quality and to promote climate resilience through green development, while it has also been set to make inclusive city that will include to; foster more and better jobs and social activities to youths, women, reinforce human capital, social safety net, and inclusion in public services, and strengthen citizen engagement.
For institutions and system improvement that includes integrated land planning, inter-agency coordination, sustainable municipal financing, and data governance and management it estimated the budget of USD 191 million for short term that is up to two years and USD 546 million for medium and long term.
Under a competitive city that includes business environment, skills and innovation, and cultural assets the cost estimated USD 73 million and USD 245 million respectively in two different terms mentioned above.
Similarly for the pathway of livable city that considered targets including housing, basic services, social services, walk-able and green neighborhood the budget might be USD 1.113 billion and USD 3.83 billion for short and mid long term goals respectively.
For projects like environment and ecology, and climate resilient green development that was included under a sustainable city pathway, USD 66.5 million and USD 2.214 billion was required for short term and mid and long terms.
For projects like gender, human capital, safety net, public services, citizen engagement that was included on inclusive city of the framework, USD 236.7 million and USD 457.5 million is required respectively in the stated different periods.
In total, USD 8.97 billion would be required in the two implementation period for project to be run in the coming years.
Key reform actions to break policy impediments and unleash Addis’ growth potential are fostering to regularize properties, adopt market-based compensation, reinforce formal transaction, increase land auction, expedite cadastral updates; and simplify lease to enable easy and fast transfer and use of lease as collateral, and emplace advance evidence-based city planning and management by integrating land use, disaster risk management, transport, housing and infrastructure planning and monitoring systems; increase the capacity to tighten compliance monitoring, development control and enforcement measures; build the capacity to understand and implement integrated plans in a coordinated manner.
It added that for the establishment of an enforceable incentive mechanism for vertical and horizontal coordination for spatial planning, infrastructure development, and implementation monitoring; and develop advanced knowledge and practice in developing and maintaining city-wide integrated data and IT system, and improve public investment management; reinforce property tax; and leverage the value of existing assets to finance public infrastructure and introduce land-based financing such as land value capture, land readjustment, development gains restitution, betterment levies as further key reform actions.