Healing Rivers Spurs City to Bend Growth Around Its Restored Spine

Jun 28 , 2025. By Ledet Muleta ( Ledet Muleta (ledetized@gmail.com) is an advisor for Strategic Programs Management in the Mayor's Office of the Addis Abeba City Administration. )

Over the course of several months of regular site visits, I have watched Addis Abeba’s rivers transform from refuse-choked channels to polished corridors of urban life. The transformation, driven by the Addis Abeba River & Riverside Project, is altering the city’s look and its sense of possibility. On walks with visiting dignitaries, I have pointed to new stone paths, young saplings and cleaned waterways. This is how the capital plans to grow: green, inclusive and people-centred.

The scheme, with an unprecedented commitment from Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed (PhD), steered by Mayor Adanech Abiebie and team, is no ordinary beautification push. It is a wholesale effort at restoration, equity and sustainability that threads through two major rivers and more than 70 smaller streams. Where mud, trash and toxic runoff once pooled, crews now lay tree-lined boulevards, pedestrian and bike lanes, pocket parks and cultural spaces. Each section is meant to function, not merely impress. To connect neighbourhoods, it draws fresh air into crowded quarters and reminds residents that rivers are public, not dumps.

The work, spread across dozens of construction fronts, demands constant coordination among engineers, horticulturists and residents.

Addis Abeba confronts the same compounding pressures that crowd many African capitals  rapid population growth, rising pollution and climate stress  but the riverside project chooses bold action over incremental fixes. In its sweep and speed, it is one of the most visionary initiatives the city has undertaken, reshaping not only concrete and soil but the narrative of what an African metropolis can be.

The change is already visible. Families push strollers across new footbridges. Teenagers idle along the bike paths. Street vendors, once shoved to littered shoulders, trade in tidy stalls that speak of dignity as much as commerce. The smell that once clung to the water, a mix of equal parts sewage and smoke, has thinned. In its place come the scents of fresh soil and newly laid grass. Long-time residents tell me that it is more than development. For them, the project represents dignity, ownership, and pride.

Environmental dividends sit behind the aesthetics. Cleaner rivers mean fewer waterborne illnesses, less flooding in the rainy season and revived urban ecosystems. Reforestation is central. Planners are removing invasive or dying trees and replacing them with resilient indigenous species, targeting to sequester carbon, provide shade for walkways, and expand the country’s Green Legacy program. By swapping brittle exotics for deep-rooted natives, the city seeks an ecological balance that will last long after the ribbon-cutting ceremonies.

The project also draws on Ethiopia’s store of indigenous knowledge. Engineers adapted the Konso people’s centuries-old terracing methods to steady riverbanks and slow erosion. Local communities join the crews, merging traditional practices with modern machinery and lending the effort a stamp of ownership rather than a top-down decree.

Numbers give the push a wider context. According to the United Nations, more than 60pc of Africa’s population will live in cities by 2050. Many of those cities now struggle with the very problems Addis Abeba is trying to overcome: overcrowding, polluted waterways, scarce public space, and rising climate risks. By attacking its rivers first, Addis Abeba offers a template other municipalities can study, a message that rehabilitation can start with the neglected terrain that cuts through a city’s heart.

Each time I guide foreign guests  conference delegates, investors, ambassadors  they notice the difference quickly. Walking the refurbished embankments, they photograph children racing scooters where refuse once drifted and note how the new parks knit together communities previously sliced by murky channels. Several have told me they intend to pitch similar schemes back home, evidence that the project’s influence is already leaping borders.

The road here was hardly smooth. Before the first shovel turned, the banks served as dumps, open toilets and sporadic shelters. Floods carried waste downstream, spreading disease and dampening property values. Sceptics argued that any cleanup would be swallowed by fresh trash inside a year. Instead, steady work crews, strict waste rules and clear political cover have shifted the odds. The riverside today offers a cleaner breeze and a safer footing than many thought possible.

What stands out most is how the effort seamlessly combines civic pride with practical benefits. Addis Abeba is not only constructing promenades; it is testing whether African cities can leap over the mistakes of older metropolises, channelling rivers in concrete, only to return later at a steeper cost to patch the damage. Here, the bet runs the other way. Heal the river first, and the city’s growth will curve around the restored spine.

I hold an unwavering conviction that the project can reshape not only Addis Abeba but urban Africa more broadly. The initiative builds more than infrastructure; it nurtures trust, belonging and a belief that city life can be both modern and natural. It proves that rivers once treated as hazards can become the arteries of civic revival. They can indeed be places where children play, businesses thrive, and ecosystems rebound.

Let Addis Abeba stand as a reminder that Africa’s cities can rise, and rise green, healthy, sustainable and inclusive.

PUBLISHED ON Jun 28,2025 [ VOL 26 , NO 1313]