Economic liberalization and the urban poor in Ethiopia: A study of selected towns - Research Seminar

Solomon Mulugeta has a PhD in urban planning and policy development from Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. He teaches in the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies at the College of Social Sciences, Addis Ababa University, and is currently a visiting fellow at the African Studies Centre in Leiden.

Ethiopia, a country which experienced the heavy-handed rule of a Marxist junta from 1974 to 1991, has been witnessing market-oriented reforms over the last 13 years. As the results of surveys conducted in selected towns suggest, the market-oriented reforms have impacted on the livelihood of urban households both positively and negatively. On the positive side, the reforms seem to have led to a reduced dependence of job seekers on public-sector employment and to their growing involvement in various types of income-generating activities. The findings also suggest that the reforms have led to the increased availability of rental accommodation and consumer goods as well as to a slight upward shift in average household incomes, especially in places that appear to have relatively more vibrant economies. On the negative side, economic liberalization seems to have led to increased polarization in household income, an ever-worsening hike in the prices of basic commodities and a significant rise in the cost of housing resulting in the further marginalization of the urban poor.