The city of Addis Ababa, the leading urbanizing city in the country, inhabits nearly 20 percent of the total urban population in the country (CSA, 2014). Rapid urbanization coupled with high population migration into the city have accelerated the housing stock demand beyond capacity. The housing sector that engages in supplying housing stock to the city’s residents has been in long-standing strain. At the beginning of the year 2000, the city’s nearly 4 million inhabitants had a housing supply backlog of about 300,000 units. While these number shows the housing supply shortage in the city, exiting housing infrastructure are also characterized by poor and oftentimes at poor conditions. In Addis Ababa, housing supply is also most critical to the middle and low-income groups of the population. A number of factors fostered the poor housing supply condition in the city. First, is lack of access to affordable land and the widely practiced market-oriented land management system. Besides poor land management practices, lack of diversified housing delivery system; the absence of robust and affordable housing construction industry; and the absence of diversified housing financing system are all factors that continually shape the housing stock supply in the city. Particularly among the urban poor, limited access to decent to affordable housing has driven fast growing informal and squatter settlements in the city.
