Migration and Rural-Urban Linkages in Ethiopia

The promulgation of ethnic-based federalism and the formation of organised ethniccentredregional administrations since 1991 have arguably influenced the dynamics ofinter-regional population migration specifically in the first four or five years. Forinstance, the Migration, Gender and Health Survey conducted jointly by DemographicTraining and Research Center / Addis Ababa University and PSTC/Brown University(2000) with a focus on the five most populated regional states, Oromia, Amhara, SNNPR,Tigray and Addis Ababa, indicated that permanent intra-regional migration has becomemore frequent than permanent inter-regional migration with the exception of seasonalmigrants moved to Addis Ababa. The 1999 National Labour Force Survey of Ethiopia(CSA, 2000) also showed that inter-regional migration was very limited, particularly forpermanent migrants. However, as there are no similar studies that show the inter- andintra-regional patterns of population movement before the implementation of ethnicbased federalism, it is difficult to draw clear conclusions. Factors such as lack ofinformation about other regions and preference to stay in a region where the migrants areconfident of speaking the language and sharing the culture could also contribute to thelow level of inter-regional migration. The survey further revealed that while ninety andseventy-eight percent of permanent migrants moved within Tigray and Oromia RegionalStates, respectively, only fifty-eight percent, the lowest of any region moved withinSNNPR, a much more heterogeneous region than the others.Like its predecessors, the EPRDF-led government does not have a positive attitudetowards migration. The EPRDF strategy document states the objective of reducing urbanboundmigration in order to increase utilisation of labour within the agricultural sector .This is also clear from the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper of Ethiopia (FDRE, 2002),which focuses on the negative aspects of migration and portrays it as a cause of urbanpoverty, HIV/AIDS transmission and increasing crime rates. The strategy argues thatrural-urban migration increases the influx of people from rural areas, puts pressure onurban services and infrastructure and swells the rate of unemployment (FDRE, 2002).On the other hand, the government argues that the provision for private ownership ofrural lands would force peasants to sell their land out of distress and would result in urbancentres facing an influx of landless and poor rural people. It insists that the currentEPRDF policy regime protects farmers from a possible loss of their prized and perhapsirretrievable asset, which would occur if and when policies like full land ownershiprights, including the right to transfer land through sales, were conferred (Berhanu &White 1999).The household panel survey that was conducted by the Ethiopian Economics Association(2003), however, challenges the link between rural land sales and migration. The surveydisclosed that ninety-three percent of the survey respondents would not sell their land ifthey were given full ownership rights including the right to transfer through sales. Mostof the respondents justified their intentions for not selling by claiming that they have noother means of survival (seventy percent), while others claimed their land is not simplyfor sale (seventeen percent). Therefore, while it may be fair to have such a precautiousgovernment policy position regarding the negative aspects of migration, the presence of11