By Misael Lemma
Ethiopia’s urban population, which was estimated at 17.3 percent in 2012, is one of the lowest in the world and even below the Sub-Saharan average of 37_percent. But this is set to change dramatically. According to the Ethiopian Central Statistics Agency, the urban population is projected to nearly triple with annual growth rate of 3.8 percent. This means, it will reach 42.3 million by 2037.
However, a report by the Ethiopian Urbanization Review indicates that the urbanization rate will even exceed by 5.4_percent per year. According to the review, urban population would triple even earlier than the abovementioned period and the rate of urban residents throughout the country would reach 30_percent by 2028.
The Review also indicated that Ethiopia is going through a demographic transition in parallel with rapid urbanization. The labor force has doubled in the last two decades and is projected to rise to 82_million by 2030, from where it was 33 million in 2005.
The Review clearly stipulated that the rapid urban population growth would present a huge opportunity to shift the structure and location of economic activity from rural agriculture to the larger and more diversified urban industrial and service sectors if it is utilized proactively. On the contrary, the urban population boom would pose pressure for the cities in terms of providing jobs, infrastructure, services, and housing.
Tiumezghy Berhe, Urban Good Governance and Capacity Building Head at the Ministry of Urban Development and Housing said that the major cause of the urbanization challenges is the unbalanced growth between the urban population and cities.
“In Ethiopia for example, the population of rural-urban migrants boomed in a very short time. However, the cities’ pace of growth in terms of different infrastructures such as water, electricity and communication facility, is not comparable with the speed of their population growth,” he noted.