Improving urban living conditions

CIM expert Alexandra Linden works in Ethiopia. Her aim is to improve urban living and working conditions on the basis of good governance. Over the past two years she has helped to bring Ethiopian Cities in a position to provide public services efficiently and effectively.

It is only a stone paved road, but for the people of the city of Awassa in southern Ethiopia it is a blessing. The stones are bought from local traders, while young workers with  little schooling, women and disabled persons are given employment and are able to feed their families. The quality of the road is improved for both pedestrians and car drivers, and businesses along the roadside register increases in sales of between twenty and forty per cent.

Over the past two years, CIM expert Alexandra Linden has helped to transform this project into reality. She works for the Bureau of Works & Urban Development of the Southern Region. Her aim is to bring about the sustainable development of urban areas in order to improve urban living and working conditions on the basis of good governance. With her local colleagues, she advises four municipal authorities in the south of the country on drafting urban development plans; she also keeps a close eye on budget planning and implementation. With her support, informal settlements in Awassa are currently being legalised and connected to electricity and water supplies. Only a few years ago the city authorities would have bulldozed these settlements.

It has been a complete success, in which seven other CIM experts have been involved at national and regional level in addition to Alexandra Linden. The CIM experts are employed directly by a local employer and cooperate closely with GTZ’s Urban Governance and Decentralisation Programme (UGDP). In the field of urban good governance, cooperation focuses on cities and municipalities that are promoted as centres of political and economic development. It is intended that cities in Ethiopia will thus be in a position to provide public services efficiently and effectively, thereby also integrating the development of surrounding rural areas.