The peri-urban cadastre of Addis Ababa: Status, challenges, and fit-for-purpose prospects

Ethiopia is developing its land administration systems to support the adjudication and registration of approximately 50 million land holdings. Being a federalized country, and with differing land policies and laws for urban and rural lands, multiple cadastral and land registration systems are under development, each intended to be eventually integrated. Taken holistically, the system is not yet fully functional. Peri-urban areas present a special challenge, where previous studies demonstrate administrative overlaps and voids contribute to community uncertainty and conflicts. Fit-for-purpose Land Administration (FFPLA) approaches offer the opportunity to rethink land administration in these areas. In this vein, this study explores the status and contemporary cadastral information demands of peri-urban areas for land administration development opportunities, focusing on the specific case of the capital, Addis Ababa. The interpretivist/constructivist research paradigm guides the development of a mixed methodology. It enables the creation of an aggregate understanding of the status of the land administration function in the case area – based on local office-level data. It is found that whilst the current approach to cadastral development in Addis Ababa can be seen to exhibit FFPLA characteristics, there still remains a diverse mix of political, legal, spatial, institutional, and technical constraints for further implementing the methodology. The work also finds the integrated application of geospatial technologies is most appropriate for data capture in the Addis Ababa context. Moreover, comprehensive upskilling and retraining of the existing workforce, and the future workforce, is needed.