Analysis of the Changing Functional Structure of Major Urban Centers of Ethiopia

Abstract

The study attempted to analyze the patterns of the changing functional structure of major urban centers of Ethiopia over the period of 2009 to 2012. An economic base, export employment multiplier and shift share analysis were used to identify the basic sectors, the export employment and expanding and declining industries in fifteen major urban centers. The location quotient results showed that there have been changes in economic bases, for twelve out of fifteen urban centers. The major sources of export employment were construction, distributive and social services for most of the towns considered. Export employment analysis has indicated that some towns of leading regions have relatively higher percentage of export employment compared to others. In general, the major drivers of the urban employment growth in many urban centers over the study period were found to be distributive, social and extractive sectors. However, the role of the transformative economic sectors, particularly the manufacturing sector is not as such encouraging for many towns. Against this back drop, the analysis surfaced local economic development issue such as how the towns included in this study could capitalize more on the transformative economic sectors through various incentive mechanisms.

The Socio-economic Analysis of the Street Economy in the Twin Cities of Pakistan (Article)

“…The illegal and informal status of street vendors makes their livelihood more vulnerable in cities (Brata, 2010;Esayas & Mulugeta, 2020). Vulnerability is the extent to which persons or things are likely to be affected (Flanagan, Gregory, Hallisey, Heitgerd, & Lewis, 2011).…”

“…The literature has documented various levels of socioeconomic vulnerability faced by street vendors in cities of developing countries. To empirically examine the socioeconomic vulnerability of street vendors in twin cities, we used the framework created by Esayas & Mulugeta (2020) with some modifications. We used three broad dimensions to capture the socioeconomic vulnerability of street vendors, namely social vulnerability (V1), vending vulnerability (V2), and economic vulnerability (V3).…”

“…Using the mean and standard deviation of 𝑀𝑉𝐼 𝑖 , we defined four vulnerability levels, including "not vulnerable (𝑀𝑉𝐼 𝑖 ≤ 0.447)", "mild vulnerable (𝑀𝑉𝐼 𝑖 > 0.447 &𝑀𝑉𝐼 𝑖 ≤ 0.562)", "vulnerable (𝑀𝑉𝐼 𝑖 > 0.562 &𝑀𝑉𝐼 𝑖 ≤ 0.677)" and "acutely vulnerable (𝑀𝑉𝐼 𝑖 > 0.677)". Esayas & Mulugeta (2020) used a similar approach to define various levels of vulnerability among street vendors.…”

“…Another significant contribution of our study is that we develop a comprehensive Multidimensional Vulnerability Index (MVI). We extended the vulnerability index developed by Esayas & Mulugeta (2020) by incorporating local dimensions/elements relevant to twin cities in Pakistan. Further, we use the Alkire-Foster methodology to construct the MVI of street vendors (Alkire, Roche, & Vaz, 2017;Nawaz, 2021;.…”

Motivations and livelihood dynamics in the urban informal economy: the case of Dire Dawa City, Eastern Ethiopia

“…The larger size and greater diversity of economy in urban centres tend to attract a large number of street vendors in the context of Ethiopia. The city of Dire Dawa is known as a centre of transport and commerce (Baldet, 1970;Solomon, 2008;Engida & Solomon, 2014). It has been one of the major centres of informal cross-border trade in the eastern part and in the country as a whole.…”