Living with environmental health risks - the case of Addis Ababa

The rapid population growth of Addis Ababa poses the city with many environmental challenges. The current fragmented approach to sanitation and poor waste management has brought serious environmental and health problems. The study deployed purposive and stratified cluster sampling techniques in diagnosing the institutional arrangements for waste management through personal interviews and focus group discussions with stakeholder agencies and households in the slum and residential areas of the city. The threats to groundwater and riverine systems were most proliferated in the central, most densely populated areas of the city, that are poorly served with sanitary facilities. The study concluded that possible improvements may include legitimization of the informal system, community participation and possibly partial privatization. Such an integrated approach seems to be the best option and could well hold the key to the effective and sustainable waste management system in rapidly growing cities such as Addis Ababa.