Gabisso Halaale
In 2015, the 193 member states of the United Nations adopted Sustainable Development Goals that will anchor global development efforts between now and 2030. Goal 11 is to “Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable”. Some of the key targets of Goal 11 include: (i) Ensure access for all to adequate, safe and affordable housing and basic services and upgrade slums; (ii) Provide access to safe, affordable, accessible and sustainable transport systems for all; (iii) Enhance inclusive and sustainable urbanization; (iv) Strengthen efforts to protect and safeguard the world’s cultural and natural heritage; and (v) Reduce the adverse per capita environmental impact of cities.
Ethiopia is a signatory to the various UN and other international statutes and one would hope for its development policies to be compatible with the aspirations of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Nonetheless, the TPLF regime that does not abide by its own constitution cannot be expected to uphold the international commitments. The Addis Ababa Master Plan envisages to annex 36 towns and 17 districts from the Oromia State. The plan violates the UN SDGs and undermines some of the key targets of Goal 11 and other SDG goals.
First, boundless expansion of Addis Ababa into the Oromia region will displace millions of poor indigenous Oromo farmers. This will not only inherently destroy the livelihood security of the indigenous inhabitants, but also their language and cultural heritage undermining the key goals and targets of the SDG. This will contradict the SDG commitment to strengthen efforts to protect and safeguard cultural and natural heritage. By destroying the livelihood security of farmers, the Master Plan will undermine SDG Goal 12 which is to “Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns.” By evicting the farmers from their ancestral lands, the Master Plan disrupts the sustainable production and consumption patterns of the Oromo farmers that live around Addis Ababa thereby undermining the SDG targets.
Secondly, expansion of the city into the largely rural areas in Oromia will endanger the ecosystem. It will destroy forests, mountains, and wetlands thereby violating the SDG Goal 15 which aims to “Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss.”
In addition, urban sprawl will undermine efforts to ensure green growth and combat climate change. This contradicts Goal 13 of the SDG which is to “Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts”. Rapid expansion of urban centers will increase the carbon footprint primarily because of higher energy consumption per capita in the transport sector thereby undermining efforts to combat climate change.
Furthermore, rapid annexation of large rural settlements into urban centers undermines the government ability to provide adequate basic services to all and upgrade slums. According to a recent study by the Delft University of Technology “Addis Ababa ranked the city with more slums in Africa, with alarming numbers, 80% of the city lives in low quality, slum-like dwellings, most of them with no sanitary services, potable water, waste management, etc. 70% of the slums are located in the inner city, mostly in premium locations of special interest for the city or private developers, this shows the enormity of the issue and why slum-upgrading policies, eviction actions, relocation schemes and more programmes are in the front of both architectural and political discourses.” The UN Habitat’s State of the World Cities 2012/13 Report, indicates that the proportion of the Addis Ababa population living in slum areas was 76.4% in 2009. There is an urgent need to upgrade slums in Addis Ababa. Expanding outside of the current city territory without developing the inner city slum which accounts for nearly 80% of Addis Ababa is an ill-advised development strategy. It will undermine the governments’ own ability to provide adequate economic and social services to all. The government will be forced to cough up huge sums of funds for investments on road expansion and maintenance, electricity grid extensions, water supplies and telephone lines, among others. The inability to provide these services to all is in stark contrast to the SDG goals and targets.
By focusing on the development of the inner slum in Addis Ababa, the government will achieve what town planners term as densification of urban areas, i.e. filling in the cities instead of boundlessly expanding to the neighbouring farm lands. Densification can be applied as an urban development model not only to new cities but also to old cities with significant unused or less optimally used urban spaces. Addis is one of the least densely populated cities in the world with population density per sq. km in 2012 of about 5700 as compared to population density of over 30,000 and 12,000 persons per sq. km for Mumbai and Lagos respectively. The densification of cities has a number of advantages. These include, among others, an efficient use of land which is one of the scarcest resources; the efficient use of the existing infrastructure; less travelling distances and hence low consumption of energy and low pollution; better scenic beauty as cities become more compact; and social sustainability. Densification also saves travel costs for the citizens and the costs of delivering basic economic and social services for the government. In short, densification anchors growth and development of economically, ecologically and socially sustainable cities. City densification is a corner stone of sustainable urban development. Addis Ababa has an ample potential for densification and more sustainable city development. According to the 2012 land use report by government, 27% of the land in Addis Ababa is used for field crop production while 8.5% of the total are areas was open space. Therefore, there does not appear any economic and social imperative to expand the city any further in the coming few decades until the inner city slum is adequately developed.
One may then ask why the TPLF government remained obsessed about the Master Plan for far too long despite massive opposition from the Oromo society in the past one and a half years. The answer is obvious. As various scholars have argued in the recent past, the primary objective of the Master Plan is not about the sustainable development of Addis Ababa. It is about unmitigated access to large chunks of land to enrich the TPLF officials and its henchmen. In reality, the Master Plan is the Master Land Grab. If the regime were committed to the long term, sustainable development of the city, it would prioritize the densification of the 80% slum areas mostly in prime locations in the middle of the city, not expand to an area ten times the current size of the city, unless the intention is to create the largest slum of the world.
The TPLF officials know very well that it won’t be easy to evict the Addis Ababa city slum dwellers and trade with their lands. On the other hand, evicting a poor Oromo farmer in the surrounding villages could be achieved with relative ease. They have done this for the past 25 years and were determined to continue this with impunity.
The TPLF decision to develop the Master plan in the first place, reflects a complete absence of freedom of choice in the country. It highlights a complete lack of accountable and inclusive institutions at any level in the country. It signifies lack of freedom. In free societies, political leaders are elected by the people. Therefore, they safeguard the economic, political, social and cultural interests of the electorate. If the citizens are aggrieved by the actions of the politicians they have elected to lead them, they fire them in the next rounds of elections. In free societies no single political institution has a monopoly over political views. No 100% victory at polls. There are wide range of alternatives from which the electorate can freely select the political institution that it thinks can best serve its interests. In essence, therefore, in free societies, leaders are servants of the people and not the other way round. Accordingly, before implementing any major decisions that affect the economic, social and cultural interests of the citizens, governments in free societies widely consult the citizens either through public fora or referenda to reach consensuses. These can range from a minor family related laws, policies and plans to more complex socio-economic problems.
On the contrary, in unfree societies such as colonies, empires and kingdoms, rulers seize political power through a hereditary aristocratic succession, a coup de tat, and/or as victors of expansion or a civil war. Therefore, rulers of the unfree societies are not accountable to the people they rule. Nothing obliges them to safeguard the interests of the citizens. In unfree societies, the primary objective of the rulers is to serve their own narrow selfish interests. Therefore, in unfree societies the people are servants of the rulers. Rulers can take any decisions that have immense implications on the economic, social, and cultural interests of the citizens with impunity. Because they are not accountable to the people, rulers of unfree societies cannot tolerate any dissenting voices. Any decisions taken by rulers are right, because for dictators, the “might is always right.” The Master Plan and what ensued since 2014 in Oromia bears the hallmark of an absolute tyranny. We witnessed the TPLF absolute power corrupt absolutely before the eyes of the world.
The role of the local representatives of the various ethnic based Peoples’ Democratic Organizations (PDOs) which the TPLF manufactured in 1991 and 1992 and thereafter could not be viewed in isolation. The members of the PDOs are mercenaries that are there to serve the interest of their mentors, the TPLF officials. They are not the representatives of their peoples. At no time were they elected by these peoples at free and fair polls. Obviously, neither did their mentors. Although the PDOs do not command real political powers, both are illegitimate oppressors who are hell bent to make the life of the oppressed peoples hell on earth.
Beyond the Master Plan, the boundless TPLF dictatorship in Ethiopia today directly violates the aspirations of the UN SDGs. The unaccountable and top down decisions the regimes takes in the name of development undermines the UN SDG Goal 16 which is to “Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels.” The TPLF regime is all but for peaceful and inclusive societies. Under this regime, justice has been denied to the majority of the peoples of the country for the past 25 years. Justice has been denied to the 140 Oromo civilians massacred in cold blood by the tyrant TPLF soldiers and police forces. Justice has been denied to over 30,000 Oromo civilians languishing in various concentration camps across the country today. I agree with sentiments of the Oromo political and civil leaders that talking about the suspension of the Master Plan today is too little, too late. The regime is fully accountable for the crimes it committed against the civilians in Oromia since April 2014. Accordingly, first, it should bring the perpetrators of the crimes to justice. Secondly, it should immediately release all political prisoners. Thirdly, it should reinstate farmers that have been evicted from their ancestral lands. Fourthly, it should compensate families that have lost their loved ones immediately and finally instate genuine self-rule in Oromia and across the country.
In sum, the boundless expansion of Addis Ababa city into Oromia is illegal, unconstitutional, and violates the UN 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. The UN and the international community should hold the TPLF regime accountable for obstructing sustainable development in Oromia in particular and the country in general. The oppressed peoples of Ethiopia should no more procrastinate. They have a historic duty to stand by the Oromo people to achieve freedom from tyranny once and for all.
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