Analysis of the Changing Functional Structure of Major Urban Centers of Ethiopia

Abstract

The study attempted to analyze the patterns of the changing functional
structure of major urban centers of Ethiopia over the period of 2009 to 2012.
An economic base, export employment multiplier and shift share analysis were
used to identify the basic sectors, the export employment and expanding and
declining industries in fifteen major urban centers. The location quotient results
showed that there have been changes in economic bases, for twelve out of
fifteen urban centers. The major sources of export employment were
construction, distributive and social services for most of the towns considered.
Export employment analysis has indicated that some towns of leading regions
have relatively higher percentage of export employment compared to others. In
general, the major drivers of the urban employment growth in many urban
centers over the study period were found to be distributive, social and
extractive sectors. However, the role of the transformative economic sectors,
particularly the manufacturing sector is not as such encouraging for many
towns. Against this back drop, the analysis surfaced local economic
development issue such as how the towns included in this study could
capitalize more on the transformative economic sectors through various
incentive mechanisms.