Poverty And Urbanization In Ethiopia

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Shuntaro Takahashi Ethiopia Process of urbanization and structural change for an effective reduction of poverty Statement of the research question Ethiopia is a country located in the eastern part of Africa which is the oldest independent country in the continent as it has never been colonized by a European power, making it a nation with rich culture and heritage. It is also the second most populous country in Africa after Nigeria, with an estimated population of almost 100 million in 2015 according to the World Bank. The country has achieved very strong economic growth in the past decade after reforming and expanding the agricultural sector, experiencing a rapid growth in GDP of approximately 10% annually from 2004 to 2015 according to data…show more content…
The process of urbanization is lacking some fundamental aspects that the inhabitants need in order to live in a sufficient condition, especially in terms of access to jobs and infrastructure. Although there are favorable circumstances concerning wage employment in urban areas compared to rural ones, the creation of official jobs with a consistent wage is nonetheless dropping behind the growth of the number of people within these areas, leading to a deficient access to jobs. Data from the Urban Bi-annual Employment Unemployment Surveys in 2011 showed that the unemployment rate in urban population was more than 15%, whereas the number was less than 5% in the rural population. Furthermore, the supply of infrastructure is far from satisfactory, and particularly in urban areas the hygiene services such as water systems are insufficient to the extent that they are a threat to public health. These serious obstacles of urban poverty must be improved as the country carries out a structural…show more content…
The Ethiopia Poverty Assessment of 2014 suggests that policies that will strengthen urban safety nets will reduce urban poverty greatly. They predict that in the future, high food prices to aid the rural poor will damage the poor in urban areas and that stringer safety nets will be efficient in helping their situation. It is argued in the assessment that higher transfers to fewer households would have a larger impact on the reduction of urban poverty. This was proven by data where the impact of three different cash transfer amounts on poverty were examined by the number of households that would be able to escape poverty as a result. For a cost of 0.2% of GDP, the highest amount of transfer (1500 Birr) reduced the poverty rate the most by almost cutting it in

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