Ethiopia Owns All Its Urban Land. Here's How That Actually Works
Land Value Capture in Practice: Ethiopia's Urban Land Lease System
Ethiopia's constitution makes all urban land public, leased to residents and businesses rather than sold — one of Africa's largest real-world experiments in land value capture. Wudu Muluneh, who ran land tenders as a district manager in Addis Ababa's Bole Sub-City and now researches land administration at Bahir Dar University, traces the system from the Derg's 1975 nationalization through the 1993 lease proclamation, weighing its promise against its persistent flaws.
When I started my career as a District Municipal Manager in Bole Sub-City of Addis Ababa City Government in 2008, I did not think I was stepping into one of the most ambitious land value capture experiments in Africa.