The Political Economy of Rural-Urban Interfaces around Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Abstract

The study aims to assess the political economy of rural-urban interfaces in the pace of rapid urbanization of Addis Ababa City, the capital of Ethiopia. It seeks to understand the rural-urban interfaces employing the political economy lens of dependency theory. Primary data were collected through qualitative techniques, such as KIIs and observation methods. 20 randomly selected rural and urban dwellers were interviewed to capture their views, experiences and reflections regarding the prevailing rural-urban interfaces such as people, environment and culture. Also, quantitative data were gathered from secondary sources. The data collections and analyses were carried out between February 2013 and February, 2014. It was observed that despite there are major shifts in development policies and strategies in poverty reduction in Ethiopia, the majority of the endeavours are urban centred but rhetorically rural focused. The rural-urban interfaces in Ethiopia, as explained and underpinned by dependency view, the urban-the metropolis extracted and exploited the rural-satellite for self-development and flourishing which left the latter at the heart of underdevelopment economically, socially, politically, and contaminated the rural landscapes and environments. The find concurred with the fact that urban are dependent on rural for economic growth, environmental services and sink of waste, political instruments, and aesthetic values. As dependency perspective dictates, against the Growth Pole theory, the bias to urban metropolis is evident that caused the underdevelopment of rural satellite or periphery and flourishing urban. Thus, there is a premium need to examine the pro-rural policies of Ethiopia as it seems pseudo-concern and paternalistic promulgation but systematic, structural and technical biased towards urban in practices.