"AFRICAN MOBILITY: CASE STUDY ETHIOPIA"

What will Ethiopian mobility look like in the future? How can Ethiopia learn from the mistakes of other countries in regards to environmental protection? How can infrastructure be built in a sustainable way? These are the questions that students from the faculty of Urban Design at Stuttgart State Academy of Art and Design have dedicated themselves towards in the last semester. They present their research project “African Mobility. Case Study: Ethiopia” on the 1st October, 5 pm, at the Goethe-Institut Addis Ababa. The project was conducted in co-operation with EiABC.

Ethiopia is, with an urban population of only 17 to 20 percent, one of the least urbanized countries in Africa and worldwide. However, the country has with 5 percent also one of the highest urbanization rates. This creates a lot of pressure on a country in which a significant part of the population has no access to basic infrastructure, services, and goods like clean water, education, electricity, medical care, and hygiene. To plan ahead issues around future mobility is therefore of vital importance. In this process, it makes sense to look over to other countries: Over the last decades, countries such as Germany have shown that the increasing number of cars does not only require expensive infrastructure investments, it has also negative effects on the climate, the environment, the quality of public spaces and the economy. As Ethiopia should not follow this example, five students from Germany and Ethiopia have drafted a “Manifesto for the 21st Century Mobility” under the direction of Prof. Fabienne Hoelzel, consisting of the following five theses:
 

1. Future mobility strategies eradicate modern colonization

2. The Ethiopian urbanity leads to the future mobility

3. The future African city is without roads

4. The future African mobility is beyond the car5. Sub-Saharan mobility forms are on the cutting edge