Laying the foundation for a more resilient Hawassa

Investing in Bedrocks and the Blueprints

January 16, 2026

I had the privilege of leading a highly strategic urban resilience project in Hawassa , Sidama Region, Ethiopia, since late 2024. Beyond the technical outputs, the experience fundamentally reshaped how I understood urban development. It reaffirmed a simple but powerful truth: the “traditional” urban development model—focused largely on economic growth, infrastructure delivery, and land-use planning—is no longer fit for purpose on its own.

While physical investments remain essential, they do not automatically translate into sustainable or equitable urban outcomes. Without deliberately integrating social vulnerability, environmental sustainability, risk awareness, and strong community engagement, cities risk becoming fragility. What is required instead is an approach that consciously envisions a more inclusive, adaptive, and sustainable city.

Hawassa - A City of Opportunities and Risks

Hawassa is a lakefront city located in Ethiopia’s Great Rift Valley, established in the late 1950s as a planned urban center, unlike other organically grown cities in Ethiopia. Over the years, the city exemplified the complexity of today’s urban challenges. Rapid population growth and unchecked urban sprawl have far outpaced infrastructure development, placing intense pressure on basic services. Climate change has amplified these stresses, with flooding emerging as a major and recurrent hazard threatening lives, assets, and livelihoods.

(Sources: Ecosystem and Livelihoods Assessment for Hawassa, 2025)

Poor solid waste management is threatening Lake Hawassa

At the heart of the city lies Lake Hawassa, after which the city takes its name, an ecological and economic lifeline for inhabitants, supporting tourism, fisheries, agriculture, and industry. Unfortunately, the lake is under increasing pressure due to unsustainable ecosystem management. Inadequate waste and wastewater systems, persistent rural-to-urban migration, the conversion of wetlands into settlements and have significantly increased risks. This was further compounded by limited risk governance capacity. The combined impacts of environmental, climatic, health, and geological risks are converging to drive vulnerability, making a compelling case for investment in resilience.

(Source: Urban Risk Profiling Assessment 2025, UNDP)

Spatial distribution and temporal expansion of built-up areas in Hawassa City (2000-2025)

Resilience Does Not Happen by Accident

One of my strongest convictions from UNDP’s recent programming in this area is that urban resilience does not emerge as a natural process, but it must be intentionally and meticulously planned. But how do we begin?

There is no universal formula. However, a committed nodal city government and a comprehensive understanding of the city’s risk landscape are indispensable as a foundational ‘start button’.

This realization shaped our first engagement in Hawassa. A multi-stakeholder platform was established, with clear terms of reference, to build shared ownership and collective commitment for urban resilience. This platform became a space for learning, coordination, and sustained engagement among government, academia, communities, and development partners.

Understanding Risk as the First Bedrock

Any meaningful resilience effort must begin with a deep and structured understanding of the urban context. In Hawassa, this took the form of a six-month, city-wide urban risk profiling exercise. More than 4,000 households, 16 sectoral government offices, over 40 development planning experts, university professors, private sector actors, and other partners actively contributed data.

One of the keys to the success of the risk profiling exercise was the participation of a diverse set of stakeholders, which played a crucial role in improving the reliability and credibility of the findings. Equally important, and more than any other actor, the city government demonstrated a strong interest in having the risk profile in place and therefore remained highly committed throughout the entire process. This experience reinforced a critical lesson: effective risk assessments must be participatory, evidence-based, and demand-driven, with strong ownership from local authorities to ensure relevance.

Too often, risk reports become documents that stay on the shelf or serve only short-term silo project design. In Hawassa, we deliberately aimed for a different outcome—using the risk profile to inform a 10-year, evidence-based, multi-year city resilience strategy and investment plan, co-developed by more than 40 development planning experts representing all key sectoral offices of the city administration.

Risk profiling should never be an end in itself.

Bridging Evidence and Action

The Hawassa risk profile exercise has provided a solid and comprehensive evidence base for resilience planning and investment. However, evidence alone does not create change, but rather human action (or inaction) that does. Bridging this gap requires clear “rules of the game” to guide coordinated implementation. This is why UNDP supported the development of multi-hazard disaster preparedness and emergency management protocols and Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for Hawassa. These tools are central to translating resilience plans into real-world action. This is part of UNDP’s support towards cascading and localization of the roles of Federal Emergency Coordination Center to sub-national urban contexts. Looking ahead is just as critical. In my nearly two decades of work in development and disaster risk reduction, I have observed that many so-called “emerging risks” are simply tomorrow’s disasters in disguise. Heatwaves are a prime example – the increasing trend in heat intensity today, if not addressed, carries the potential to become a heatwave hazard could become a major hazard in the coming years.

Recognizing this, we commissioned a comprehensive assessment of heatwave trends, trajectories, and impacts in Hawassa, followed by the design of a dedicated heatwave resilience strategy.

Water and Municipal Services as Foundations of Resilience

One of the most rewarding aspects of this initiative was how water was fully integrated into urban resilience planning—addressing both access to water and water-related risks. Our comprehensive water resources assessment culminated in the development of a 10-year Water Master Plan for Hawassa, laying one of the most critical foundations for long-term resilience.

Urban resilience is also inseparable from effective municipal service delivery. Weak municipal services often create new risks or worsen existing ones. Waste and wastewater management in Hawassa clearly illustrate this challenge. A comprehensive assessment of functionality and governance of over 11 municipal functions/services led to the development of a 10-year roadmap for improved municipal services, including recommending key innovations and digital solutions to enhance efficiency and accountability.

The Bedrocks and the Blueprints

Reflecting on this journey, I am convinced that investing in bedrocks is essential for resilience in a multi-hazard urban context. For Hawassa, these bedrocks included urban risk profiling, water resources assessments, heatwave analysis, disaster preparedness protocols and SOPs, and municipal service assessment.

But evidence alone is not enough. What truly drives transformation is blueprints. These are practical instruments that convert knowledge into action. These include the multi-year city resilience strategy, the municipal governance roadmap, the Water Master Plan, and the heatwave resilience strategy.

These blueprints, among other things, have placed the emphasis on financing and resources mobilization, as well as enhanced engagement of the private sector and community organizations as key players in city resilience. Together, the bedrocks and the blueprints form a coherent pathway toward a more resilient and vibrant Hawassa.

What Comes Next?

Is the work complete? Not even close.

Resilience demands action—government-led, partner-supported, and community-based. Strong government ownership is essential to drive implementation, particularly through sustained resource allocation and mobilization. Development partners and financiers are urged to invest proactively in urban resilience, rather than waiting to finance disaster responses later. Investing clearly identified priorities ensures coherence, efficiency, and a far greater return on resilience investments.

Finally, community engagement must remain at the center. Awareness raising, advocacy, and localized action, guided by identified resilience zones, are critical to ensuring that resilience investments truly reach those who need them most.

Hawassa’s journey is still unfolding. But with strong bedrocks and clear blueprints in place, the city is far better positioned to face uncertainty, and to build a more equitable, sustainable, and resilient future.

*UNDP’s support to Hawassa is undertaken under the Resilient Urban Futures Initiative, financed by the governments of Denmark, Luxembourg, and the Republic of Korea through UNDP’s Funding Windows. The project is implemented by the Ethiopian Disaster Risk Management Commission in collaboration with the Sidama National Regional State and Hawassa City Administration.

Our current work in Hawassa builds on UNDP’s overall engagement in promoting risk-informed and sustainable urban development, including the Urban NAMA COMPOST initiative in the country, which focused on promoting low-emission development, composting, and waste management; as well as our partnership with the Ethiopian Environment Protection, including on pollution abatement.

**The blog is written by Teketel Daniel, Disaster Risk Management Programme Specialist, UNDP-Ethiopia. He can be reached on teketel.daniel@undp.org