The influence of land management on the prevalence of informal settlement and its implication for environmental management in Bahir Dar city, Ethiopia by TESHOME TAFFA DADI Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF LITERATURE AND PHILOSOPHY In the subject ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT at the UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH AFRICA SUPERVISOR: Prof D T DEGAGA July 2018 Dedication To my wife and children, who shared my pains i ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to my Adviser, Dr. Degefa Tolossa, who generously devoted his time and knowledge to giving me his proper guidance and suggestions. I also appreciate his patience, invaluable comments and criticisms that he gave me throughout the preparation of this dissertation. I am also indebted to Dr. Tesfaye Teshome and Dr. Tilahun Bejitual for proofreading and correction of errors in English. My sincere gratitude also goes to the sub-city administration leaders of the sample area, staff members of the Bahir Dar city administration, Belay Zeleke and Shimbit Sub-cities, and above all to all those inhabitants who granted me personal and group interviews, without whose cooperation this study would not have been possible. Special thanks go to Ato Belay Sinte, Ato Degu Amogne, Meto Aleqa Berhanu, Ato Agernew, and Ato Asnakew. I owe much to the leadership of the Institute of Land Administration at Bahir Dar University and all other staff members, thank you for your kindness and inspiration and most prominently for your understanding and tolerance. My heartfelt thanks go to my friends and relatives Dr. Dida Midekso, Ato Tefera Atalay, Dr. Teshome Bekele, Ato Asmamaw Tenko, Ato Bekele Bedada, Dr. Gebeyehu Belay, and Dr. Birhanu Kefale who in one way or another shared my pains in the course of this study. Lastly, I thank the Ministry of Education for granting me financial assistance to conduct the study. iii ABSTRACT Bahir Dar is one of the rapidly growing Ethiopian cities characterized by the rise of informal settlements. The expansion of spontaneous neighbourhoods in Bahir Dar is, among other things, conditioned by land management policies and practices. Thus, the intention of this research was to explore the influences of land management on the prevalence of informal settlements in Bahir Dar city, Ethiopia. So as to meet the study targets this research employed mixed method approach, and the data were gathered from various sources by applying different methods. The quantitative data was drawn from 156 random samples through household surveys. It was collected from four FGDs, interview of eight community elders, sub-cities and municipality officials and code enforcement professionals. Furthermore, case studies, published and unpublished documents, photographs, and satellite images were used to enrich the analysis. To analyse quantitative data, SPSS statistical software was used to extract descriptive statistics, to test hypotheses and to draw tables and various types of graphs. Content analysis was employed to analyse qualitative data. It was found that expansion of informal settlements in Bahir Dar was caused, among others, by Poverty of inhabitants, rural-urban migration, limited capacity of the city to deliver basic services, low housing supply and high housing demand, and limitations in land lease laws, as well deficiency of essential amenities like water, sanitation and electricity. The influences of land management policies and practices that resulted to prevalence of informal settlements were found to be the subjective implementation of housing and land leasing policies, harsh government farm expropriation and very low compensation payments, weak governance practices in land administration, frequent demolishing of houses and precarious security of tenure. Even though informal settlements help to address the housing shortage in the city and contribute to environmental management in some areas of the city, it is largely intimidating environmental management, deteriorating the livelihoods and thus brought about the unsustainable city development. In order to address the challenges of informal settlements, it was suggested that legal framework to formalize informal settlements, develop an effective and efficient land administration system, improving good governance in land administration, establish land and housing policies favouring low-income population, and bring about attitude change favourable to urban development are essential. Keywords: Bahir Dar; Demand; Environment; Housing; Informal settlement; Land; Land management; Policy; Sustainable; Tenure; Urbanization. iv TABLE OF CONTENT ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ......................................................................... III ABSTRACT ........................................................................................... IV TABLE OF CONTENT ........................................................................... V LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................. IX LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................. X LIST OF BOXES ................................................................................... XI CHAPTER 1 ............................................................................................ 1 INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................... 1 1.1 Background of the Study ................................................................................ 1 1.2 Statement of the Problem ................................................................................ 5 1.3 Research Aim and Objectives ....................................................................... 10 1.4 Research Questions ...................................................................................... 11 1.4 Scope of the Study ......................................................................................... 11 1.5 Limitations of the Study ................................................................................ 12 1.6 Structure of the Dissertation ......................................................................... 13 CHAPTER 2 .......................................................................................... 14 REVIEW OF THEORETICAL AND EMPIRICAL LITERATURE ............ 14 2.1 Introduction .................................................................................................... 14 2.2 Informal Settlement ........................................................................................ 14 2.3 Causes of Informal Settlement ...................................................................... 17 2.4 Influences of Urban Land Management on expansion of Informal Settlement ............................................................................................................. 19 2.4.1 Limited land supply and urban land management ................................................................ 21 2.4.2 Instruments and requirements for an efficient land management system ............................ 22 2.4.3 Improving tenure security ...................................................................................................... 22 2.5 Implication of Expansion of informal settlement for environmental management ......................................................................................................... 24 2.6 Review of Empirical Literature ...................................................................... 26 v 2.6.1 Causes of informal settlements ............................................................................................. 26 2.6.2 Consequences of the prevalence of informal settlements .................................................... 31 2.7 Analytical Framework .................................................................................... 32 2.8 Summary ......................................................................................................... 34 CHAPTER 3 .......................................................................................... 36 THE STUDY AREA AND RESEARCH METHODOLOGY .................... 36 3.1 Introduction .................................................................................................... 36 3.2 The Study Area ............................................................................................... 36 3.3 Research Approach ....................................................................................... 38 3.4 Research Design ............................................................................................ 39 3.5 Sampling Technique ...................................................................................... 40 3.6 Methods and Instruments of Data Collection .............................................. 42 3.6.1 Documents ............................................................................................................................ 42 3.6.2 Interviews .............................................................................................................................. 44 3.6.3 Focus group discussion ......................................................................................................... 45 3.6.4 Household Survey ................................................................................................................. 45 3.6.5 Case Study ...........................................................................................................................