Stakeholders’ Opinions and Social Considerations Relevant in Developing a Sustainable Management & Service Provision Structure for Public Parks in Addis Ababa: A Study of Six Parks

Abstract

1 Introduction 1.1 Background Horn of Africa Regional Environment Centre and Network (HoA-REC&N) was invited by Addis Ababa City Beautification and Parks Agency (AAC-BPA) to participate in the Agency’s effort to work out a viable management and service provision structure for existing and future public parks in the City.

To this effect, two meetings were held at the premises of HoA-REC&N. The first was a stakeholders’ meeting (held on 21 April 2015) attended by officials and representatives of AA Beautification and Agency, Ministry of Urban Development, Housing and Construction (MUDHC), Addis Ababa Environment Protection Agency (AA-EPA), Ethiopian Institute of Architecture, Building Construction and City Development of Addis Ababa University (EiABC, AAU), and HoA-REC&N. This meeting discussed the central issues of how to go about the development of a management and services structure for public parks in Addis Ababa, and the ways in which the different stakeholders attending the meeting can participate in and support the effort. After a thorough discussion and appraisal of the multiplicity and intricacies of the social and managerial issues involved in working out development structure for the varied public parks of the city, the stakeholders’ meeting decided as follows: a) Firstly, based on size, location, terrain (physical feature), special feature, and purpose (use) different five typologies were identified, namely, 1. Remote and city Park 2. Neighborhood Park 3. Centrally located big Park 4. Centrally located small peculiar Park 5. Remote and big festival Park. b) Secondly, the following five existing parks were selected as being representatives of each of the above five park typologies, namely, (1) Behere-Tsige Park for remote and city Park (2) Ledeta condominium Park for neighborhood Park (3) ECA Park for centrally located big park (4) Ethio-Cuba Friendship Park for centrally located small and peculiar Park (5) Akaki Park for remote big festival Park. c) Thirdly, a thorough social assessment study shall be carried out on the above listed parks that are representative of each of the typologies with the ultimate aim of providing inputs to the design, management and governance of the parks listed above, in particular, and all of the rest 31 parks under development, in general. d) Finally, the meeting assigned to HoA-REC&N the tasks of undertaking social assessments of the selected five parks and, on the basis of which it shall work out appropriate management structures. The EiABC was made in charge of developing their physical designs.

The second was an in-house HoA-REC&N meeting (held on 11 May 2015) that was attended by HoA-REC&N’s staff and the consultant, which decided to include in the study a sixth park, namely, the park that is under development near Holland Embassy as a centrally located middle-sized park type.