By Hirsi Abdulkadir Mohamed
Former Member of the Ethiopian Federal Parliament and Horn of Africa Political Analyst
Tuesday September 8, 2026
Jigjiga’s transformation will not be decided by how quickly its main avenues change, but by whether urban growth produces reliable services, secure land rights and public institutions capable of planning decades ahead.
Jigjiga is no longer a modest regional town. It is the political, administrative, educational and commercial centre of Ethiopia’s Somali Region, and its physical footprint is expanding rapidly. Population growth, migration, private construction and public investment are reshaping the city. That expansion creates an unusual opportunity: Jigjiga can become a well-planned regional capital—or allow today’s infrastructure gaps to harden into tomorrow’s urban crisis.
The central question is therefore not whether Jigjiga should modernize, but what modernization should mean. For residents, it must mean services that reach homes and neighbourhoods. For businesses, it must mean predictable rules and fair taxation. For government, it must mean investing according to a long-term plan rather than responding to growth after problems become expensive and politically difficult.
Water is the first test of modernization
Reliable water remains Jigjiga’s most urgent urban challenge. Many households and businesses continue to experience shortages or irregular supply, despite substantial investment in water infrastructure. This affects public health, household budgets and commercial activity, while poorer residents often pay the highest effective price through private supply.
A 2025 investigation by The Reporter estimated that the city requires about 40,000 cubic metres of water daily, while existing infrastructure supplies only a fraction of that demand. It also reported allegations of procurement irregularities, weak supervision, delays and technical shortcomings surrounding the second phase of the Jigjiga Water Project. Officials and the contractor disputed aspects of those allegations. The competing accounts make an independent technical and financial review essential—not to prejudge responsibility, but to establish what was delivered, why shortages persist and how future investment can be protected.
Such a review should examine the capacity and condition of wells, reservoirs, transmission lines and distribution networks, together with contracts, payments, supervision and completion records. Its principal findings should be made public. Transparency would help restore confidence and ensure that any future phase begins with lessons from earlier implementation.
Beyond a review, Jigjiga needs a water-security strategy based on credible population projections. It should protect existing sources, develop sustainable additional supply, reduce leakage, expand storage and extend distribution to underserved neighbourhoods. New settlements should not be approved without a realistic plan for water, drainage and other basic infrastructure. Expanding the city without expanding its service networks simply relocates the shortage.
Waste, sanitation and drainage are one system
Waste management is often treated as a secondary municipal activity, but it is central to public health, flood prevention and civic dignity. A 2023 environmental and social assessment prepared under Ethiopia’s urban water and sanitation programme reported that Jigjiga had no sewer network and collected only about 40 percent of the solid waste it generated. It also raised concerns about the existing disposal site near the Jerer River.
The city needs an integrated system covering collection, transport, sorting, recycling, treatment and environmentally safe disposal. Collection schedules should be predictable in every neighbourhood, including peripheral settlements. Private companies, youth enterprises and community organizations can help deliver services, but the municipality must set standards, monitor performance and remain accountable for coverage.
Water, sanitation, drainage and solid waste should be planned together. When waste blocks drainage channels, heavy rain becomes a flooding and health emergency. Corridor construction should therefore incorporate drainage capacity, utility access and maintenance from the design stage—not add them after roads and pavements are complete.
Plan expansion before it becomes irreversible
Jigjiga’s most consequential decisions are now being made at its edges. New settlements create demand for roads, water, schools, clinics, markets, public transport and open space. If land is allocated before those needs are mapped and reserved, retrofitting infrastructure will be costly and may require displacement.
The city has a planning foundation. In 2019, the regional government launched a revision of Jigjiga’s structure plan with technical support from UN-Habitat. The initiative sought to connect the citywide structure plan with Local Development Plans and address economic growth, inclusion, environmental concerns and integration with surrounding areas, as described in UN-Habitat’s account of the process. The priority now is transparent implementation.
Approved plans should be publicly accessible, regularly updated and consistently applied to land allocation, building permits and infrastructure spending. Before residential plots are issued, the city should reserve land for water facilities, drainage, roads, schools, health centres, markets, parks, waste services and emergency access. Expansion should also respect legitimate customary, pastoral and peri-urban land interests through consultation, transparent valuation and fair compensation.
Digital land records need institutional safeguards
A rapidly expanding city cannot rely indefinitely on fragmented paper archives. Jigjiga should build an integrated digital land-information system linking verified rights to surveyed parcels and approved land uses. Each recognized parcel should have a unique identifier and a georeferenced cadastral record.
Ethiopia’s Urban Landholding and Land-Related Property Registration Proclamation No. 1381/2024 provides a national legal basis for stronger cadastral registration and land-information systems. But digitization cannot merely transfer disputed records into electronic form. Claims should be verified through transparent procedures, affected parties must have access to appeal, and every alteration should leave an auditable record.
Technology also requires people. The city and its sub-cities need trained planners, surveyors, engineers, GIS specialists, archivists, legal officers and IT professionals. Jigjiga University and other institutions could support professional training, applied research and independent technical evaluation.
Taxation works only when public trust works
Urban services require revenue, and businesses have a duty to comply with lawful tax obligations. Yet revenue administration must be transparent, predictable and open to review. Sections of Jigjiga’s business community have raised concerns about estimated assessments, VAT enforcement and digital systems. An Addis Standard analysis of the dispute acknowledged both the government’s legitimate interest in compliance and business concerns about consultation, implementation and data protection.
Dialogue is more productive than confrontation. Taxpayers should receive clear written explanations of assessments and access to a timely, impartial appeal process. Businesses, in turn, should keep proper records, issue lawful receipts and report income accurately. The objective is not weaker taxation but more credible taxation.
Public reporting would strengthen that credibility. The city should publish accessible annual accounts showing revenue collected and spending on water, sanitation, waste management, roads and other services. Compliance becomes easier to defend when residents can see a relationship between what they pay and what the city delivers.
A city-building vision for the next generation
Corridor development can remain part of Jigjiga’s transformation, but it should support rather than displace essential services. Given limited public resources, completing selected projects to a high standard is more responsible than stretching budgets across numerous unfinished schemes. Quality, maintenance and measurable service improvements should matter more than the number of projects announced.
Jigjiga’s current administration deserves credit for visible infrastructure improvements. The next phase, however, requires a broader and more ambitious urban vision. Leadership must anticipate where future residents will live, where their water will come from, how waste will be managed, which land will be reserved for public facilities and how municipal revenue will be accounted for. These are not questions for 2040; decisions taken now will determine whether they can be answered then.
A practical way forward would be to make Jigjiga the Somali Region’s pilot for comprehensive urban modernization: independently assess water investments; establish citywide sanitation and waste services; enforce transparent development plans; secure land records; and connect taxation to accountable service delivery. Once evaluated, successful systems could be adapted to other growing regional cities without overstretching limited budgets.
Jigjiga has the strategic position, economic importance and human potential to become one of eastern Ethiopia’s leading urban centres. But its success will not be measured only by what visitors see along its main avenues. It will be measured by whether a family can turn on a tap and find water; whether a neighbourhood is clean and safe; whether a business is taxed fairly; whether a land record can be trusted; and whether expansion follows a coherent plan.
That is the modernization Jigjiga’s residents deserve—and the standard by which its next chapter should be judged.
