Urban Governance With Respect To Cities Competitiveness In Ethiopia The Cases Of Dire Dawa And Hawassa Cities

The general objective of the study was to investigate the urban governance system in respectrnof competitiveness in Ethiopia. Dire Dawa and Hawassa were used as case studies tornexamine the urban governance system and the performance of the urban competitiveness.rnThe study has employed a mixed research approach and descriptive case study as a researchrnmethod. Both primary and secondary data were gathered from public, private and civicrnsociety organizations operating in the case areas. The urban governance system and urbanrncompetitiveness are interrelated and interdependent. The urban government in Ethiopia hasrnadministrative power to furnish both the province and municipal affairs and they have thernPower to generate and collect their own revenue within the frameworks that were delineatedrnby law regardless of the high intervention of the federal government on urban matters. Thernanalysis concludes that, governance structure of the cities, the absence of institutional andrnlegal mechanism to promote the NSA‟s involvement and the less autonomous power of urbanrngovernment in making laws and policies would affect the competitiveness of cities, while thernlocation and being the center of political and administrative seats of the state contributesrnmore to enhance cities‟ competitiveness. In addition, the urban government system inrnEthiopia is highly dominated by the state actors in which the NSAs did not have the adequaternbargaining power to express their preference in urban development plans and policies. As arnresult, the coalition between the state and non-state actors depends on the downwardrnrelationship of implementation of urban development policies and obtaining the commitmentrnof the non-state actors. Coordination for the sake of enhancing economic growth andrncompetitiveness has been absent in both cities studied. As a result of the centralized policyrnmaking process, the cities haven‟t used policies and laws as an instrument to attractrninvestment to their territories, and more than 93 % of investments were concentrated in AddisrnAbaba. A key contribution of this dissertation is the recognition of how the governancernprocess influences the policy decision-making process and how this may relate to therneconomic performance of cities‟ in enhancing competitiveness. Finally, There are varyingrnexplanations for why individual cities have done good or bad, but it might be required torninvestigate further why the disparity has created between Addis Ababa and other major citiesrnlike Hawassa, Dire Dawa, Mekelle, Bahir Dar and etc in attracting and retainingrninvestments. These might be issues for further research.rn(Key Issues: Urban Government, Urban Governance, Urban Competitiveness)

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