Assessment of Basic Community Needs and Best Practices in Addis Ababa City/Ethiopia

This dissertation is the study of basic community problems in Addis Ababa City to identify signs of hope so that its readers may understand how to mobilize community for transformation. Addis Ababa, the capital city of Ethiopia and the base of African Union, is one of the big cities in Africa with a population of over 2.9 million people.

This dissertation was written based on the premise that any project or development initiative aimed at transforming a community should consider community mobilization and genuine participation. With the desire to see the salvation of community as its goal, this dissertation used Jesus as a model and God's desire for transformation of communities, his love, relationship, mission, incarnation, and calling, as the theological and biblical basis for this dissertations conclusions.

In order to gather data for this dissertation a holistic city consultation approach was taken in which the city councils and 1,114 stakeholders were engaged in direct discussions. Those discussions became the means by which major challenges and problems of the people in Addis Ababa were identified and used to collect qualitative data and information. The limitation of this research was that it has not conducted a base sampling method that would give quantities; however, as the primary purpose is to identify the alarming problems, which are believed to be indicative of the critical problems faced by the people so that the community could be mobilized to transform the City, the method that was employed is believed to be sufficient. In its scope, the dissertation assesses all the Woredas and Sub-Cities in Addis Ababa to provide
recommended solution applicable to all.

In its findings, the dissertation identifies the basic community needs and problems into three major categories: 1) lack of good governance; 2) questions of basic services; and 3) extreme poverty/unemployment. The concluding recommendations identified the need for the establishment of a community mobilization standing committee at all levels in the City to be supported by community mobilizations expert and strengthening the mandates of existing standing committees through which the entire members of the council (more than 38,000) are mobilized to mobilize the entire community towards transforming the whole City. The good governance problems identified as crucial
drawbacks in the city do need to be improved before these recommendations can be applied.