Moving from Pilot to Scale: a comparative Study of Innovate Shelter and Settlements Response Project for Urban IDPs in Mekelle and Adigrat, Tigray, Ethiopia

Bekele, Samuel (2025) Moving from Pilot to Scale: a comparative Study of Innovate Shelter and Settlements Response Project for Urban IDPs in Mekelle and Adigrat, Tigray, Ethiopia. URBAN INNOVATION: TO BOLDLY GO WHERE NO CITIES HAVE GONE BEFORE. Medium sized cities and towns as a major arena of global urbanisation. Proceedings of REAL CORP 2025, 30th Intl. Conference on Urban Development, Regional Planning and Information Society. pp. 711-721. ISSN 2521-3938

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Abstract

Globally, more than half of internally displaced peoples (IDPs) have lived in urban areas as the influx exacerbated by natural and man-made shocks/disasters. Following the two-year war (2020-22) in Tigray (Northern Ethiopia), more than 2 million have internally displaced, hosted in collective centres and makeshift shelters. They are still struggling to access basic services in cities and towns that have scarce resilient and sustainable capabilities. To respond to urban IDPs for shelter and settlement provision, an innovative pilot area-based (neighborhood) approach (ABA) has been implemented in Mekelle city with a scaling up a year later in Adigrat town. This paper aims to gain insight into the scale-up type, paths, process, and management of ABA humanitarian project by comparing the performances of two experiences with the help of a selected literature review on related topics. The study is conducted using a comparative case study approach using available data from primary and secondary sources and from a quick meta-analysis. Four types of scaling-up patterns have been identified: qualitative, functional, political and organizational, each with its own dynamics and degree of context sensitivity. Three scale-up pathways include expansion, replication and spontaneous diffusion. The comparative assessment reveals that both pilot and scale-up projects attempted to apply the principles of ABA model in urban post-disaster recovery (Sanderson and Sitko, 2018), exploit the vernacular architecture system of hidmo houses, the building code and planning local culture, as well as the strong sociocultural family tie. The scaled-up project benefited from lessons learned from the pilot, such as implementation of a multi-sector approach and household-tailored shelter response, though it faded out on inclusion and exclusion criteria, selection and targeting of beneficiaries that highly contribute to the effective ABA implementation in urban settlements where a large gap between need and response still exists.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Ethiopia, Tigray, urban IDP, area-based approach, scale-up
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor J Political Science > JS Local government Municipal government
Depositing User:	The CORP Team
Date Deposited:	26 May 2025 14:50
Last Modified:	07 Jul 2025 09:08
URI:	http://repository.corp.at/id/eprint/1254

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