Addis Abeba — Jigjiga is entering a decisive period in its urban development. As the capital of Ethiopia's Somali Regional State, it is expanding through population growth, private investment, new settlements, and infrastructure development. This growth presents an important opportunity to transform the city into a modern, liveable, and economically competitive regional capital.
Download Interactive MapsDiscover morenewsBrowse Digital MagazinesNewspapers Recent corridor-development projects have improved selected roads, pedestrian areas, street lighting, drainage and the appearance of parts of Jigjiga. These investments are important and should be acknowledged. But sustainable urban transformation requires more than visible improvements along central streets. A modern capital must also provide reliable water, effective waste management, secure land records, planned neighbourhoods and responsive public institutions.
The central question is therefore not whether development is taking place, but whether today's investments are being connected to a clear long-term vision for the city's next stage of growth. The administration should build on current improvements by giving greater priority to basic services, institutional modernisation, and advance planning for urban expansion.
Missing Infrastructure: Water, sanitation and waste
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Reliable access to water remains one of Jigjiga's most serious development challenges. Many households and businesses continue to experience shortages and irregular supply despite substantial public investment in water infrastructure.
Stream History Documentaries A February 2025 investigation by The Reporter documented allegations of procurement irregularities, weak supervision, delays, and technical shortcomings associated with the Jigjiga Water Project. The officials and contractor cited in the investigation disputed allegations made against them. The same report estimated that the city requires about 40,000 cubic metres of water a day, while existing infrastructure was meeting only a fraction of demand at the time of reporting.
Discover morepoliticsPoliticalpolitical These competing accounts make an independent technical and financial review especially important. Such a review should not prejudge individuals or institutions; its purpose should be to establish what infrastructure was delivered, determine why shortages persist and identify the technical, procurement and management lessons that should guide future investment.
Jigjiga also needs a long-term water-security strategy based on realistic population projections. It should protect existing sources, develop sustainable additional supply, reduce leakage, expand storage and extend distribution networks to underserved neighbourhoods. New residential areas should not be approved without a credible plan for connecting them to water and other essential infrastructure.
Discover moreJoin Social CampaignsRead Community NewsRead Political NewsDownload Interactive MapsTake Journalism CoursesJoin Diaspora NetworksPoliticsNewsFollow Federal PolicySubscribe To News Waste management deserves equal priority. A 2023 environmental and social impact assessment prepared for a faecal-sludge management subproject reported that Jigjiga had no sewer network and relied on vacuum trucks for sludge removal. It also documented serious weaknesses in waste disposal and sanitation infrastructure.
These conditions demonstrate why waste management cannot remain secondary to more visible capital projects. Jigjiga needs a citywide system covering collection, transportation, recycling, treatment and safe disposal. Every neighbourhood should have predictable collection services, while properly designed transfer and disposal facilities should be developed and operated according to environmental and public-health standards.
Water, sanitation, drainage and solid-waste management should be planned as an integrated system. In a city where drainage problems can quickly become public-health and mobility problems, investment in these services is as important to modernisation as roads and public spaces.
From urban expansion to planned growth
Jigjiga's rapid physical expansion may be its most important long-term urban challenge. New settlements are increasing demand for roads, water, schools, health facilities, markets, drainage, public transport and other services. If these areas develop before infrastructure and land uses are properly planned, the cost of correcting the resulting problems will be much higher.
The city is not starting without a planning foundation. UN-Habitat reported that the Somali Regional Government launched a revision of Jigjiga's structure plan in October 2019 with technical support from UN-Habitat, with the intention of connecting citywide planning to more detailed local development planning and addressing economic, social and environmental pressures.
The priority now should be consistent implementation and public accessibility. Approved structure plans and Local Development Plans should guide land allocation, building permits and infrastructure investment. Residents and investors should be able to understand which areas are intended for housing, commerce, industry, roads, public facilities and environmental protection.
A modern Jigjiga should ultimately be judged not only by the appearance of its main corridors but also by the quality of life of its residents."
Land for schools, health centres, drainage, markets, parks, water infrastructure and other public services should be reserved before residential plots are allocated. Planning ahead is not simply a technical preference; it is one of the most effective ways to reduce future compensation costs, land disputes and infrastructure deficits.
A rapidly growing capital also requires modern land administration. Paper title deeds, fragmented archives, and manually managed records become increasingly difficult to administer as the city expands. They can contribute to slow service delivery, uncertainty over boundaries and disputes involving overlapping or incomplete records.
Subscribe To News Jigjiga should therefore establish an integrated digital land-information system linking verified land rights, accurately surveyed parcels and approved planning information. Each parcel should have a unique identification number and be connected to a georeferenced cadastral map. Existing title deeds should be inventoried, verified, digitised and preserved in secure modern archives.
Subscribe To News Ethiopia's Urban Landholding and Land-Related Property Registration Proclamation No. 1381/2024 provides a national legal foundation for modern cadastral registration and integrated urban land information, including the use of modern technology and standardised systems.
Digitalisation, however, should not merely transfer existing inconsistencies into electronic form. Conflicting records should be verified through transparent procedures, and every alteration to an official land record should leave an auditable trail. The city will also need trained planners, surveyors, engineers, geographic-information specialists, archive professionals, and information-technology staff to make the system effective.
Jigjiga's growing economy also requires a stronger relationship between taxation and public service delivery. Businesses have an obligation to pay lawful taxes, and effective revenue collection is essential for financing water, sanitation, roads, waste management and other public services. At the same time, tax administration must be predictable, transparent and responsive to legitimate taxpayer concerns.
Recent disagreements between the city administration and sections of the business community over VAT compliance and the proposed linkage of point-of-sale records to tax administration illustrate the importance of consultation. An Addis Standard op-ed on the dispute noted both the administration's objective of improving compliance and traders' concerns about implementation and commercial-data protection.
Stream History Documentaries These concerns are best addressed through structured dialogue. Taxpayers should receive clear explanations of how assessments are calculated and have access to timely appeal procedures. Businesses, for their part, should maintain proper records, issue lawful receipts and report income accurately. The objective should not be weaker taxation but more credible taxation.
Public trust would also be strengthened if the city published accessible annual information showing how much revenue it collects and how that revenue is allocated to water, waste management, roads, sanitation and other services. Tax compliance is easier to sustain when residents and businesses can see a clear relationship between what they contribute and what the city delivers.
Conclusion: Build better, not just bigger
Corridor development can continue to play an important role in Jigjiga's modernisation, but its scale should reflect available financial and institutional capacity. Where resources are limited, completing selected corridors to a high standard may deliver greater long-term value than expanding projects too rapidly.
Quality should take priority over scale. Completed corridors should have functioning drainage, pedestrian safety, reliable utilities, waste-management arrangements and realistic maintenance plans. Investment in visible infrastructure should not come at the expense of water security, sanitation and other essential urban services.
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Jigjiga could serve as the Somali Region's pilot for comprehensive urban modernisation. If the city successfully integrates infrastructure development, reliable basic services, digital land administration, planned expansion and accountable revenue management, those systems can later be adapted to other major urban centres in the region.
Ultimately, Jigjiga's challenge is not a lack of development activity. It is the need to connect current investments to a stronger long-term urban vision. The present administration has overseen visible infrastructure improvements, particularly through corridor development. The next phase should build on those gains by strengthening the institutions and services that determine whether growth is sustainable.
Jigjiga needs urban leadership capable of looking beyond immediate construction priorities and anticipating the city's requirements over the next two or three decades: where future residents will live, how they will obtain water, how waste will be managed, where schools and health facilities will be located, how land rights will be protected and how public resources will be accounted for.
This is not an argument for abandoning corridor development. It is an argument for placing it within a broader city-building strategy. Jigjiga has the population, economic significance and strategic location to become one of eastern Ethiopia's leading urban centres. Achieving that potential will require better planning, stronger professional institutions, accountable service delivery and leadership with the vision to prepare the city for its next stage of growth.
A modern Jigjiga should ultimately be judged not only by the appearance of its main corridors but also by whether families have reliable water, neighbourhoods are clean, businesses receive fair and predictable treatment, land records are secure and new settlements are planned before problems become permanent. That is the deeper urban transformation the city should now pursue. AS
Editor's Note: Hirsi Abdulkadir Mohamed served as a member of the Ethiopian House of Peoples' Representatives from 2005 to 2010, representing the Jigjiga constituency, the capital of Ethiopia's Somali Region. He can be reached at hirsineero@gmail.com
