URBAN LAND MANAGEMENT PRACTICES AND CHALLENGES; THE CASE OF ARBA MINCH CITY, GAMO ZONE SOUTHERN ETHIOPIA

Abstract

The main objective of the study was to examine the urban land management practices and challenges in the Arba Minch city municipalities’ offices, Gamo Zone, Ethiopia. The study applied descriptive research designs to accomplish the research objectives. The study adopted mixed research method by employing both quantitative and qualitative research methods. The study employed multi-stage random sampling that included 237 sample households. The data collected was analyzed using descriptive statistics with the help of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS version 20). The findings of the study revealed that there are inefficient as well as ineffective implementations of urban land use planning; land information system and urban housing land delivery system were major challenges that constrained the urban land management in Arba Minch city municipalities’ office. The result of study also showed that implementation of urban land planning is the most determinant variables for achievement of effective urban land management in city municipality’s offices. Accordingly, the findings of study further identified urban land management challenge characterized by, lack of efficient allocation of urban land for residential, lack of effective implementations of urban land planning, lack of effective land plan controlling & monitoring systems, inadequate amount of land compensation, ineffective implementation of modern land cadastral system, lack of efficient urban land lease system in the urban land management, in city municipality offices. The study recommends that, management and employees of municipality’s offices should pay more attention on improving effective implementations of urban land use planning for achievement of urban land management in the municipality’s offices. The governmental policy makers of municipality’s offices should establish a policy for implementing modern urban land information system to improvement of urban land management in municipality’s offices. Finally, this study recommends that there is need to carry out further studies in order to identify other challenges of urban land management in the city municipality’s offices