South Ethiopia Bets on Brick. Residents Foot the Bill

South Ethiopia Bets on Brick. Residents Foot the Bill

Jun 21 , 2026. By HELINA HADGU ( FORTUNE STAFF WRITER )

Wolaita Sodo, Arba Minch, and Dilla collectively hold an estimated half a million residents, representing nearly seven percent of the South Ethiopia Regional State’s population. These three hubs carry the majority of the region’s urban growth. Regional officials argue that the mandate to replace timber structures with concrete blocks and bricks is an attempt to elevate the aesthetic and environmental standing of the newest member of the federation, which was established in 2023. While the ban addresses severe historical deforestation and climate pressures such as flash floods, it also exposes the high cost of rapid urbanisation. Property owners and tenants alike are struggling to finance the immediate structural upgrades demanded by municipalities.

In the fast-growing towns of South Ethiopia, the cost of progress is arriving one corrugated iron sheet at a time.

Regional authorities have ordered municipalities to stop issuing construction permits for traditional mud-and-wood houses, opening a new front in an urban renewal drive meant to reshape towns while easing pressure on shrinking forests. The directive, issued by the Urban & Infrastructure Bureau under the South Ethiopia Regional State, and effective immediately, freezes approvals for timber-heavy houses and pushes builders toward engineered materials such as concrete blocks and bricks.

Officials cast it as both "an aesthetic and an environmental project," a way to turn regional hubs into cleaner and more competitive centres for business and tourism.

The ban is framed above all as an environmental measure. Regional officials blame the continued use of timber for deforestation and intensified climate pressures, including prolonged droughts and flash floods. In the five years beginning in 2001, the Gamo area lost 13,000hct of tree cover. They believe that steering urban construction away from mud-and-wood would protect local ecosystems while supporting the federal government's green economy commitments.

"This will help the cities maintain their beauty and cleanliness," said Omo Shuli, deputy head of the Bureau, who placed Dilla, Wolaita Sodo and Arba Minch at the centre of the development push. Previous structural rules had limited main-road housing to basic block forms, while the Bureau now seeks standards that improve urban order and appearance. He disclosed that the Bureau is working with local manufacturers to expand access to bricks and blocks.

"The Bureau is working closely with enterprises to make bricks and blocks available to the public at affordable prices and in sufficient quantities," Omo told Fortune.

A decade ago, Wolaita Sodo was a provincial waypoint on the road south. Today, it answers to a grander title. It is the seat of the South Ethiopia Regional State, the newest member of the federation, carved out of the sprawling former Southern Nations, Nationalities & Peoples' Regional State following a referendum in 2023. With the new regional administration status came a small cluster of towns suddenly asked to shoulder an outsized share of the State's roughly 7.8 million people, according to a 2025 projection by the Ethiopian Statistical Service.

Three of them do most of the carrying. Wolaita Sodo, Arba Minch and Dilla together hold a little under seven percent of the population there, an estimated half a million residents between them. Wolaita Sodo leads with about 2.5pc of the region's population. The designation as capital has accelerated what was already brisk growth, drawing regional bureaus, banks and the clerical workforce that follows a seat of government.

Dilla, the coffee town strung along the road to Kenya, rounds out the group at roughly two percent. Its fortunes rise and fall with the price of the washed Arabica that moves through its warehouses, but its population has climbed steadily regardless, a reminder that in the south, urban growth has decoupled from any single commodity.

The shift has exposed the cost of remaking urban areas where household incomes remain low, construction supply chains are uneven, and many property owners cannot easily fund the upgrades now required of them under the new standards. For residents, the transition already carries a bill. In Arba Minch, Serkalem Teshome, a mother of two, tenants are being pulled into the cost of compliance even when orders target landlords, and property owners are themselves struggling to meet demands for quick upgrades to existing compounds and houses.

Arba Minch, the lakeside town wedged between lakes Abaya and Chamo in the Gamo highlands, accounts for about two percent of the Regional State, an estimated 150,000 to 180,000 residents like Serkalem. It is, by most local measures, the fastest-growing town, with a university bearing its name swelling into one of the south's largest and importing students and the rental economy that trails them. The surrounding Gamo Zone has leaned hard into tourism, marketing its lakes, crocodile market and proximity to the wider Omo Valley circuit.

Tenants have little room to resist when municipal rules raise the expense of keeping a property in use. The order required a 43,000 Br outlay to enclose the courtyard, a cost her landlord passed on to her.

"My landlord increased my monthly rent by 1,000 Br after the municipality ordered him to replace the existing fence with a specific type of corrugated iron sheet," she said.

Supporters of the policy counter that, managed well, the rule could generate work rather than only hardship.

Admasu Adamu (PhD), a lecturer at Wolaita Sodo University and a local resident, called the remodelling part of the region's development process.

"Remodelling the city is necessary for urbanisation," he said. "By requiring bricks and blocks, the policy could expand markets for local producers and create jobs for labourers during construction."

Urban specialists are more guarded, warning that affordability will decide whether the ambition holds. According to Efrem A. Tesfahunegn, an urban specialist and former country project manager for the UNOPS-hosted Cities Alliance, the directive supports urban transformation by encouraging more durable housing, cleaner streets and improved livability. But he cautioned against assuming every household can afford premium construction inputs.

"Policymakers should include lower-cost sustainable materials such as stabilised mud blocks for poorer households," he said. "Without accessible options, demand for timber used in housing and scaffolding could persist, deepening the environmental stress the policy is meant to reduce."

That leaves regional officials trying to reconcile three goals that do not easily move together. Greener cities, modern urban form and housing that ordinary residents can still afford.

The directive has also drawn criticism from legal professionals, who questioned whether a sweeping administrative ban can withstand constitutional and human rights protections tied to shelter. Governments, they argue, have obligations to respect and protect residents' access to adequate housing and should facilitate rather than obstruct residents' ability to secure it.

According to a legal expert, who requested anonymity due to the issue's political sensitivity, the right to housing is linked to family rights, public health, and basic protections. By making approvals harder for low-income residents, the expert argued, the Administration risks triggering social consequences well beyond urban design. Local rules, legal professionals add, should not be arbitrary or exclusionary.

"Administrative law should serve justice and social protection, not place basic shelter beyond reach," he told Fortune.

PUBLISHED ON Jun 21,2026 [ VOL 27 , NO 1364]