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Green living is an approach to life that aims to moderate the exhaustion of the earth’s natural resources. It is mainly associated with reducing one’s ecological footprint by adopting a way of life that has a symbiotic relationship with Earth’s natural energy.

Green living commences from the instant we wake up to the second we fall asleep. Having already witnessed the consequences of neglecting such practices, with various environmental crises around the world, we can understand the urgency of green living in the sustainability and survival of future generations.

Due to the rapid urbanization that began in the mid-eighteenth century, 56.2 % of the world’s population currently live in cities. The majority of these populations are currently living in an industrial society where the ecological consequences of one’s actions are of no concern. It is a given that industrialization is at odds with green living. Having had a society that has been immersed in industrialization for decades, it’ll be a challenge to introduce and adopt green living to regularize a sustainable way of living. Hence awareness is the key first step in normalizing green space. A community that understands the cause and effect of their action can easily accept green living as a way of life. To lessen the impact on the environment and alter the living habits of citizens to make them more responsible for their surroundings should be our major aim.

Some countries are trying to adopt green living by introducing infrastructures that allow for minimal waste. For example, the city of San Francisco launched a Zero Waste campaign where they aim to send zero discards to the landfill or high-temperature destruction 16 years ago and today it is a leader in the U.S. at recycling and composting with a mid-2013 rate of 80% diversion of waste from landfill in addition to a 78% recycling rate. A small village named Parismina in Costa Rica has shown car dependence is not vital for a healthy economy by having no roads and being accessible by only boat or plane. Another town in Germany named Vauban where all buildings have low energy-dependence and with a design that encourages pedestrians and cyclists, it has become a model of holistic environmental planning and eco-friendly living.

Environmental degradation, traffic congestion, inadequate urban infrastructure along a struggle to meet basic needs are a few of the problems many cities around the world are currently facing. The environmental footprints created by these cities are creating an alarming depletion of our natural resources. Therefore, introducing an infrastructure that maintains economic growth whilst creating a sustainable city should be our priority. The above-mentioned examples are a great demonstration of how much of a difference such actions can make in creating a green living environment.

When we scale down green living, we can look at green buildings. Green buildings are structures that can maintain or improve the quality of life of the environment in which it is located. According to LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environment), there is a points system based on various sections that should be considered. These sections include location and transport, sustainable sites, efficient use of water, energy, and atmosphere, materials and resources, indoor environmental quality, design innovation, and regional priority. Some examples of green buildings around the world include the Beitou Public Library in Taiwan, the World Trade Center in Bahrain, and the Museum of Tomorrow in Brazil. Upon brief research on these buildings, it’s easy to understand that sustainability and green living revolve around many aspects.

In conclusion, adopting green living in our day-to-day life is crucial in retaining a sufficient world we can hand over to generations to come. When looking into green living, we need to consider it on various scales. The urban scale can make a major impact in the short term whereas the individual level makes a major impact in the long term. But the one simple thing we need to understand is that we need to start our actions today for a better tomorrow.

1. Green living is an approach to life that aims to moderate the exhaustion of the earth’s natural resources.
2.  Green living commences from the instant we wake up to the second we fall asleep.
3.  awareness is the key first step in normalizing green space.
4.  Green buildings are structures that can maintain or improve the quality of life of the environment in which it is located.
5. adopting green living in our day-to-day life is crucial in retaining a sufficient world we can hand over to generations to come.

after economic program shift, Ethiopian People’s Democratic Revolutionary Front (EPDRF) officially announced ambitious plans to build more condominium housing units in five to seven years. It is primarily being undertaken by regional governments and city administrations with the support of the Federal Ministry of Works and Urban Development. Aiming that these units will be built on existing plots in central parts of cities and towns to stave off additional transport costs for potential occupants poor and low-income households. Arkebe Oqubay,  State Minister, was the driving force behind the programme during his time as Mayor of Addis Ababa between 2003 and 2005.

Source: UN-HABITAT (2010) The Ethiopia Case of Condominium Housing: The Integrated Housing Development Programme. United Nations Human Settlements Programme. 

 According to UN-HABITAT’s report in 2010, the combination of high population and urban growth rates coupled with a high prevalence of urban poverty have placed enormous strain on Ethiopian cites. 80 per cent of the population lives in sub-standard slum housing that needs complete replacement or significant upgrading. Ethiopian cities suffer from a high degree of homelessness, environmental degradation, urban decay, a shortage of infrastructure and basic services, and high unemployment. These factors combine to produce the critical urban issue  of the country.

According to the report of Habitat for Humanity’s report in 2009, ‘Overview of the Housing Finance Sector in Ethiopia,’ commissioned by the fin mark trust with support from Ethiopia’s growing population and rapid rate of urbanization is placing substantial pressure on housing. Especially amongst the lower income population, the challenges for lower income households to acquire their own home are twofold; lack of affordable, good quality housing stock and the difficulty of obtaining housing finance. During Ethiopia’s military dictatorship land and housing were nationalized. Financial markets did not exist. Emerging from this past and establishing a market economy has taken time. Meanwhile, the rents of existing state-owned housing have been very low and the stock has been allowed to deteriorate. To address this, the Government has launched an ambitious subsidized housing programme to replace the older state owned housing by modern multi-story flats. While the speed of production of these units is remarkable, and they contribute to the development of SMEs and employment generally, there are questions as to whether the programme addresses the needs of the poor.

Following the new constitution and federal system of government, in 1994 a rural development policy, named the Land Reform Programme, was introduced. This sought to decentralize urban planning responsibilities and to encourage secondary cities to attract rural migrants to ease pressure on the already limited housing available for urban dwellers living in Addis Ababa and other major urban areas. Addis Ababa’s first housing policy, incorporating the Government’s practice of maintaining public ownership, was also implemented at this time, but it assumed that the housing market alone would meet the demand for affordable housing of the low-income population.

 The government estimates that the current housing deficit is between 900,000 and 1,000,000 units in urban areas, and that only 30 per cent of the current housing stock is in a fair condition, with the remaining 70 per cent in need of total replacement. In Addis Ababa alone, 300,000 units are required to meet the deficit. The housing deficit is set to increase concurrently with the foreseen high population and urbanization growth. To accommodate future growth, the Urban Sector Millennium Development Goals Needs Assessment (2004) predicted that to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2015 requires a total of 2,250,831 units, which equates to a considerable 225,000 houses per annum.

The dominant player in housing is the state, manifested through its various arms such as regional governments, districts, and kebeles. The state controls the majority of the rental accommodation and influences the supply of new housing through active involvement in material production and importation, land supply, and housing finance.  Very few private housing developers exist.  The private construction industry is very small and it is complicated and time consuming to start a company, register it, and conduct business. Those that do exist operate only for high-income groups as there is little incentive to construct low-income housing.

The Integrated Housing Development Programme(IHDP)

The prominent approach of the government was to solving the low-income housing challenge is the Integrated Housing Development Programme (IHDP), initiated by the Ministry of Works and Urban Development (MWUD) in 2005. The Programme is a continuation of the ‘Addis Ababa Grand Housing Programme’ which supported the endeavors of the Ethiopian Government in their implementation of the ‘Plan for Accelerated and Sustained Development to End Poverty’ (PASDEP). The IHDP aims to: Increase housing supply for the low-income population, recognize existing urban slum areas and mitigate their expansion in the future increase job opportunities for micro and small enterprises and unskilled laborers which will in turn provide income for their families to afford their own housing improve wealth creation and wealth distribution for the nation.

The Integrated Housing Development Programme (IHDP) is a government-led and financed housing provision programme for low-and middle-income households in Ethiopia. The programme was launched in 2004 (1996 in the Ethiopian calendar) by State Minister Arkebe Oqubay, then the Mayor of Addis Ababa. Within the IHDP, specific or slum areas that are cleared and residents re-housed. The common attribute of each project is the type of housing developed, condominium

housing: multi-storied housing projects are undertaken on either brown-field sites  units for several households where communal areas are jointly owned and managed.

The IHDP has impressive targets. The mandate of the IHDP is to reduce slum areas in the city by 50 per cent and address and improve the unemployment percentage in the capital within five years, through the building of nearly 400,000 new units nationally. As of mid-2010, the government had built a total of 80,257 housing units in Addis Ababa.

The programme marks a radical departure from previous government-owned rental housing approaches to that of private homeownership. The also programme highlights government and local authority commitment to addressing housing affordability for the low-income sector of the population and improving the living conditions of the low-income urban dwellers to meet the MDGs and reduce urban slum prevalence rates in Ethiopia.

“Condominium housing is a name given to the form of housing tenure where each resident household owns their individual unit, but equally shares ownership and responsibility for the communal areas and facilities of the building, such as hallways, heating systems, and elevators. There is no individual ownership over plots of land. All of the land on a condominium site is owned.” Forced eviction and the prescribed procedural protection and due process Under international law, forced eviction is defined by the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in its General Comment; The right to adequate housing (Art.11.1): ‘forced evictions12, as “the permanent or temporary removal against their will of individuals, families /communities from the home or the land they occupy, without the provision of, and access to, appropriate form of legal or other protection.’ The prohibition on forced evictions does not, however, apply to evictions carried out by force in accordance with the law and in conformity with the provisions of the International Covenants on Human Rights.

Evictions should not result in individuals being rendered homeless or vulnerable to the violation of other human rights. Where those affected are unable to provide for themselves, the State party must take all appropriate measures, to the maximum of its available resources, to ensure that adequate alternative housing, resettlement or access to productive land, as the case may be, is available. All the individuals concerned have a right to adequate compensation for any property, both personal and real, which is affected. More detailed guidance on displacement is provided in the “Basic Principles and Guidelines on Development-Based Evictions and Displacement”, developed by the Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living. (http://www2.ohchr.org/english/issues/housing/docs).

Despite producing only half the target number of affordable housing units in Ethiopia, Ethiopian Government officials suggest that the programme has contributed to a GDP growth rate. It has created 176,000 new jobs and significantly increased the technical capacity of the construction sector. As well, the quantity and capacity of micro- and small enterprises has increased producing direct employment and economic benefits at ground-level. Following its implementation in Addis Ababa, there have been a number of important results for city dwellers: the cost of rent for a dwelling has nationally decreased; the housing shortage has been stemmed; the provision of public services for citizens has increased and greater job opportunities are available to the youth of Addis Ababa.

A significant number of units have been built: 171,000  units, representing 2,850 units per month, 12 units per working hour. In many countries this would be a significant achievement, but it is especially significant for Ethiopia considering the relatively young construction and financial sectors and previously low capacity. The programme has achieved its goal of delivering housing at low cost. In fact, the costs are extremely low, with units costing around ETB 1,000 (USD 77) per

m2, whereas if private contractors constructed them on the free market they would cost ETB 2,500 (USD 193) per m2.

Unanticipated results and achievements

  According to Habitat foe Humanities report, the Government’s plan to provide affordable housing to low- and middle-income through the condominium project has not been without problems, and the programme is increasingly coming under scrutiny because of doubts as to whether this scheme will provide sufficient affordable housing for the low and very low income groups. Among the concerns are: Lately, there have been sharp rises in prices of construction materials such as iron, cement, wood and other building materials. While this has not put a dent on the construction industry in the short-to medium term, its long term consequences and particularly its effect on the supply and demand for housing have yet to be seen. Costs rose from an estimated $87/m2 to about $144/m2; and continue to rise rendering it impossible for access to affordable housing by the poor. Although unit prices were set at the original estimate ($87/m2), many units are occupied by higher income households who can afford to pay full price ($3,590-$6,154 or more) “at one go” or a “larger down payment”. This means that moderate-income families are benefiting from the scheme intended for poor and low-income households. The Government has not officially admitted the problem but they are aware that this is primarily caused by escalating costs of construction, which has rendered housing unaffordable for the poor; Many people have found it very difficult to adapt their living patterns to multi-story living. Whether for this reason, or the opportunity for windfall profits, many families move out and sub-let their dwellings to higher income families. The gap between the amount paid by the official allot tee and the rent he can charge can be as much as five times.

 According to UN Habitat’s report review , addition to the aforementioned anticipated achievements, the programme has achievements that were not anticipated yet contribute to its accomplishments. Upon launching the programme the government was confronted with extremely high demand for housing units, which they did not anticipate. When the government first offered units in 2004,around 450,000 people registered in the hope of securing a condominium unit. The high demand has continued.

 The Low-income landlords: An anticipated beneficial outcome of condominium housing is that it creates homeowners. A parallel unanticipated outcome is that many unit owners have become landlords since they move out of their unit and rent it to another household. Unit owners that are unable to service the required monthly mortgage repayments have chosen to privately rent out their unit, rather than risk loosing it through foreclosure by the bank. As households cannot legally sell their unit for five years from the date of purchase, renting is an attractive option. Ironically, most condominium unit landlords are the very low-income households and many of these landlords were previously unemployed. There are no legal or local community administration restrictions on this strategy and no checks made on unit occupation. It is financially advantageous for unit owners to rent out their property, with rental charges more than covering the mortgage repayments.

The government appears to support condominium homeownership becoming a tool by which beneficiaries can generate substantial income through renting out their condominium, moving into a cheaper rental place and using the access rental income for income-generating or other productive activities. Thus, condominium ownership has turned into an effective poverty reduction strategy. While exact figures are not available, recent Government estimates suggest that in total up to 70 percent of homeowners rent out their condominium (either the whole unit or a part of their unit in which they continue to occupy) to increase their income to ease the struggle of paying back their bank loan, and  Land and rental housing market: As a result of the above mentioned practice, a significant supply of rental property has been introduced in Addis Ababa that has in turn reduced the city’s market rent level. This has made rental options more affordable for all income sectors.

“Whilst the IHDP has the laudable aim of targeting the low income sector of the population, unfortunately, experience has shown that ‘the poorest of the poor’ are not benefiting from the IHDP due to inability to afford the initial down payment.”

1.  The Integrated Housing Development Programme (IHDP) is a government-led and financed housing provision programme for low-and middle-income households in Ethiopia.

2.     Evictions should not result in individuals being rendered homeless or vulnerable to the violation of other human rights.

3.   An anticipated beneficial outcome of condominium housing is that it creates homeowners.

4.     An anticipated beneficial outcome of condominium housing is that it creates homeowners.

A number of impending policy changes have been announced, including letting foreigners purchase and own real estate, welcoming foreign investors into the retail sector, and making significant adjustments to the banking industry.

Regarding real estate, the policy that would permit foreigners to own real estate is the most important revelation. A house could only be acquired by certified investors in the past. The goal of attracting foreign direct investment into the nation is the driving force behind many of these policy reforms.
Information like whether foreigners can purchase any kind of property or if they must pay in foreign currency has not been made public. Many nations impose limitations, such as limiting foreign buyers to purchasing freshly constructed residences from real estate firms.

We think that this new strategy is good news for the real estate industry, but as long as financing is still tight and the tax issue is not addressed, there won’t be a significant recovery. In addition to the security issues the nation is currently facing which some consider to be the most pressing problem all of this is off course.

This move is expected to significantly contribute to closing the housing gap in the country.

In addition to the affordable housing schemes, there has also been an increase in luxury property developments in Ethiopia. The capital, Addis Ababa, has seen a rise in high-end apartment complexes and gated communities catering to the growing middle and upper-class population. These developments offer modern amenities such as swimming pools, gyms, and green spaces, adding to the appeal of urban living in Ethiopia.