Transitions in Rural-Urban Interfaces: Urbanization, land governance and livelihood in Ethiopia

• Applicant: Dr. Girma Kelboro Mensuro, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: Empirical Social Research ; Agricultural Economics, Agricultural Policy, Agricultural Sociology
• Term: from 2019 to 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 432513699

Studying land use and livelihood transitions in rural-urban interfaces increasingly becomes a major concern in development sciences. Currently, middle-sized cities are places where land governance and livelihood changes are taking place very fast, often faster than in the bigger cities. This research will investigate transitions in land governance and livelihoods in rural-urban interfaces in Ethiopia taking the case of Hawassa. The study understands transition as a multi-level governance process. It takes place in three interconnected levels: niche, socio-technical regime, and socio-technical landscape. The study will analyze how urbanization impacts on smallholder farmers livelihoods in rural-urban interfaces in Hawassa. Mixed methods approach will be followed for data collection and analysis. The first phase of the research consists of qualitative data collection through transect walk, mapping, free listing, preference ranking, focus group discussion, and participant observation. This will be followed by the second phase in which quantitative data is collected through semi-structured and structured interviews. Finally, interviews with experts in government organizations and NGOs will conclude the data collection. Analysis of qualitative data will be carried out with the help of ATLAS-ti, whereas quantitative data will be analyzed using SPSS and STATA.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants