Drivers of informal land transformation: perspective from peri-urban area of Addis Ababa

Addis Ababa has experienced extensive physical expansion, putting pressure on land, especially of peri-urban areas. The article shed light on the drivers of informal land transformation in the peri-urban areas of Addis Ababa. Observation, interviews, focus group discussions and a questionnaire survey were used to obtain the empirical data. This study has also benefited from various secondary sources. As the results of this study reveals, rapid population growth and inefficient formal land delivery system leads to a rush for informal land acquisition and development. Informal land transformation is also facilitated by an overheated urban land market. Unfair compensation for expropriated land, sense of land tenure insecurity, land speculation/ land stocking, pervasive corruption/favouritism, deceptive electoral promises, and the loose coordination among land administration institutions are all factors that nurture informal land transformation. The policy implications of the study is that the government should work to ensure the efficiency of the formal land delivery system in a way that suit the requirements of all for whom it is intended and make land policies and regulations appropriate to the situations they are meant to mediate.