Ethiopia: Digging Up Old Wounds - New City Master-Plan Ignites Old Controversy

Elevated at 2000 meters above sea level overlooking most of the country, Addis Ababa remains at center of Ethiopia's political and economic life for the past 126 years. Historically, handpicked by Emperor Menelik II to administer his expanding kingdom, mainly for its strategic defense advantages, Addis's preeminence grew, even in the continent, over time.

With this comes constant change and development which seems to have caught the eyes of international city indexes like the A.T. Kearney's Global Cities Index (GCI)-2014. The Emerging City Outlook Report published early last week placed Addis Ababa in third place next to Jakarta and Manila in prospect to become the next big international city.

The index measured the progress made by cities between 2008 and 2013 to indicate their prospect of catching up with the major cities in the world within the next decade or so. As important as the prospect it is showing, Addis is also a city of stark contrast when one digs deeper.

Until very recently it was a city where modern vehicles and transportation machineries working side-by-side with pack animals. It was a city where coordination among major infrastructure facilities and utilities was very hard to come by; where installation of one usually disrupted another well-functioning utility.

It was also a city where the standards of services and level of urbanization greatly varies as one move to the peripheries and the outskirts of the city. Yet, it is also a city where the presence of international organizations and continental structures is highly visible.

Nonetheless, the level of service delivery and growth of infrastructure is still nowhere near what is required of a city with Addis's stature. As a reflection of this urbanization pressure, the city suffered from high turn over of mayors and high ranking officials over the years.

For instance, since its inception as the political epicenter of the nation, tenure of mayorship in Addis was not more than eight years; while the average years of service for a mayor was just two years. But development has always been at the center of the city administration over the years; and working on its tenth city master-plan, which is expected to serve for the next 25 years, it has been one area of focus since the past two years