National Dialogue Announces Consensus on Addis Ababa Question, Participants Await Refined Proposal

This week, the National Dialogue Commission disclosed that the forum in the capital is nearing its conclusion, as 4,000 participants drawn from all walks of life across the country come to a consensus on all eight major agendas tabled to the conference.

Chief among them is the Addis Ababa question, with sources indicating consensus is underway whether the capital will serve as both the seat of the federal government and seat of the Oromia regional administration.

After four years of consultations involving more than 200,000 people, it appears the National Dialogue Commission has reached the stage of turning Ethiopia’s longest running public questions into negotiated recommendations.

Eight groups (thematic working groups) with each comprising 500 participants were assigned to handle each agenda when the conference kicked off last month.

As of Thursday evening, consensus has been reached on agendas of nation building, federal cities’ affairs, institutional building, rule of law, human rights, and social and economic affairs, according to the Commission. Two days prior, the groups reached agreements on agendas of peace building, religious issues, corruption and good governance, and government structure and political systems.

Discussions over the Addis Ababa agenda covered the city’s legal status (municipal ownership issues), relationship with Oromia Regional State, federal-capital status, budget share, police and courts, the city’s boundaries and names of districts within the city, alongside questions of inclusiveness, working language, and historical heritage.

The discussions also featured Dire Dawa (Ethiopia’s second federal chartered city), its legal status, future administrative arrangement, relations with the Oromia and Somali regions, as well as its parliamentary representation.

The consensus reached by conference participants marks a milestone in the long-standing debate over the issue of legal ownership of federal chartered cities. The subject has long been a point of contention in political debates about Ethiopia’s federal system, as well as a topic for academic analysis.

A 2023 study by Sisay Regassa Senbeta and Yakob Bekele Hundie notes that Addis Ababa has constitutional recognition as the capital of the federal government and has been accorded self-government, while Dire Dawa is also a self-governing federal city but does not have the same constitutional recognition.

The researchers place both cities within what they describe as the distinctive institutional arrangements created under Ethiopia’s federal system, and their report notes that the Ethiopian Constitution explicitly recognizes Addis Ababa as the capital city of the federal government with a self-governing status.

Meanwhile, Dire Dawa was designated as a chartered city through Federal Proclamation No. 416/2004, rather than through direct constitutional designation.

“While both cities enjoy administrative autonomy, their financial and political relationships with the federal government and neighboring regional states differ due to their distinct legal foundations,” reads the study.

It notes that In terms of fiscal arrangements, both Addis Ababa and Dire Dawa are granted tax powers similar to those of the regional states within their respective administrative boundaries.

However, because Addis Ababa serves as the economic hub of the country, its own-source revenue capacity far exceeds that of any regional state or Dire Dawa. Consequently, while regional states and Dire Dawa rely heavily on federal general-purpose grants to cover their budgetary deficits, Addis Ababa is financially self-sufficient and does not receive allocations from the federal general-purpose grant pool.

The paper also discussed that the distribution of federal transfers and joint revenues also reflects the unique positioning of the two chartered cities. Dire Dawa is included in the federal grant formula allocation alongside the regional states to address its fiscal gap. In contrast, Addis Ababa’s substantial tax base allows it to finance both its recurrent and capital expenditures independently. Nevertheless, joint tax revenues collected within the administrative boundaries of both cities are subject to the revenue-sharing arrangements determined by the House of Federation, balancing local revenue retention with national fiscal redistribution.

Those differing constitutional arrangements provide the institutional context for the separate questions now being considered under the federal-cities agenda.

Now, as the National Dialogue wraps up several weeks of deliberations in Addis Ababa, the 500-member group assigned to the federal cities agenda appears to have voted to make the city the seat of the Oromia regional administration in addition to its status as the Ethiopian capital.

Before the formal national dialogue began, the Commission had developed four legal-status models for Addis Ababa and another three for Dire Dawa. It was disclosed that these options were summarized based on ideas raised during earlier public discussions. The models were presented as starting points to facilitate discussion among participants rather than as final decisions.

The four options identified for Addis Ababa included that it become an entity of the federal government; a self-governing city or city state; a separate regional state; or that it become part of the Oromia Regional State.

For Dire Dawa, three legal-status models were presented including a self-governing city or city-state, a separate regional state, or a federal entity.

The presentation of these models itself prompted questions among participants over why those particular options had been selected.

Despite members of the Commission’s leadership maintaining that the four proposed models for Addis Ababa were drawn from positions raised during previous public consultations and were intended only to facilitate discussion rather than restrict the possible outcomes, the subsequent deliberations have shown a different reality.

Sources involved in the deliberations told The Reporter that the challenge lay not in the absence of alternatives but in the competing positions over the city’s ultimate legal status, with participants advancing different views on whether Addis Ababa should remain a federal entity, become a separate state or city-state, or be incorporated into Oromia.

The question of Addis Ababa’s legal status has also been examined in legal scholarship outside the current national dialogue process.

 A study titled “Constitutionality of Treating Addis Ababa As a Regional State and Its Effect on Jurisdictions of Oromia Regional State Courts”, published By Darasa Kuma in the Wallaga University Journal of Law in April 2024, examined the constitutionality of treating Addis Ababa as a regional state and its implications for the jurisdiction of Oromia Regional State courts.

The study specifically considers the constitutional rules governing the creation of regional states and argues that treating Addis Ababa as a regional state raises constitutional questions and affects the jurisdiction of Oromia’s regional courts.

It states that the Constitution recognized nine regional states within the federation under Article 47(1) and set out specific rules and criteria—grounded in settlement patterns, language, identity, and consent under Article 47(2)—for the creation of new regional states.

However, it argues that there are instances where statutory enactments by Parliament and interpretations by the Federal Supreme Court Cassation Division functionally treat Addis Ababa as an independent regional state.

“Upgrading or treating Addis Ababa as a regional state outside the express constitutional procedures bypasses the requirements established for regional statehood and violates the structural framework of the FDRE Constitution,” reads the article.

While examining the possible impact on Oromia Regional State judicial jurisdiction, the paper states that “treating Addis Ababa as a regional state has direct adverse effects on judicial jurisdictional boundaries, specifically diminishing the constitutionally protected jurisdiction of regional courts in general and the Oromia Regional State courts in particular.”

It argues that by reclassifying urban institutional and legal arrangements to mirror regional state authority, federal laws and court precedent systematically strip regional courts of their proper subject-matter and territorial jurisdiction over matters originating within or connected to surrounding regional territories.

The paper recommends that because the practice of treating Addis Ababa as a regional state lacks constitutional backing, federal statutory provisions enacted by Parliament and the Federal Supreme Court that accord Addis Ababa regional state status should be challenged and quashed before the House of Federation to restore proper constitutional order and safeguard regional judicial integrity.

The legal question examined in the study is also reflected in the positions now being advanced by participants in the federal-cities deliberations, where the status of Addis Ababa remains the principal point of disagreement.

Prior to the Commission’s announcement that participants had reached a consensus on the Addis Ababa question, sources familiar with the process told The Reporter that the group tasked with this particular agenda had reached broad understanding on a number of issues, but that disagreements over Addis Ababa’s legal status prevented full consensus.

Sources say there were serious disagreements among the discussants regarding issues surrounding the capital seat. The issue mainly arises from the historical claims over Addis Ababa, and conflict of interest between regional states, as well as the federal government.

The disagreement over the proposals cut across political affiliations, with representatives of the ruling Prosperity Party itself finding themselves divided on the federal cities agenda, according to these sources.

On Friday, the Commission warned media outlets and influencers to refrain from disseminating unverified information. “The national dialogue conference has reached its decisive stage. But we are witnessing dissemination of unverified information regarding some agendas.”

On the other hand, deliberations over Dire Dawa had progressed further, with the federal administration option emerging as the more dominant position among participants.

Sources said a majority of participants at the strategic-group level had agreed on replacing the existing 40/40/20 administrative arrangement with a federal status for Dire Dawa, while some other positions called for the city to be made accountable either to the Oromia and/or Somali regional states.

The positions involving Oromia and Somali also relate to a broader history of intergovernmental relations between the two regional states and has also been the subject of recent academic research.

A 2025 study by Ketema Wakjira of Addis Ababa University examined intergovernmental cooperation and conflict resolution between the two regions. The study identified unclear inter-regional boundaries, territorial claims and counterclaims, competition over scarce resources and control of trade routes, and the implementation of the 2004 referendum among factors associated with conflict between the two regional states.

The study concerns relations between the two regional states rather than the current National Dialogue, while the present deliberations have brought their relationship with Dire Dawa into the discussion over the city’s future administrative status.

Although the agenda formally concerns Addis Ababa and Dire Dawa, participants have raised the possibility of additional federal cities. Sources said proposals had been presented for Bahir Dar and Hawassa, as well as other cities, to receive federal-city status.

Sources said there was agreement on proposals to increase the number of federal cities. They also said participants had agreed that Addis Ababa should have its own Supreme Court and a strengthened city police commission. Another area of agreement reportedly concerns future district and neighborhood names, with a recommendation that such names should reflect national unity and representation of the country’s different communities.

Budget allocation is another issue on which a recommendation was reportedly developed. Participants believe the city is entitled to receive a budget proportionate to its capacity and needs so that it can develop infrastructure consistent with its responsibilities and resources.

The question of the city’s budget also falls within Ethiopia’s broader system of fiscal relations between the federal government and subnational administrations.

Sources engaging in the deliberations revealed that because the recommendation must cover the entire agenda assigned to the 500-member group, agreement on one city therefore does not by itself allow the group to submit a final joint recommendation when the status of the other city remains unresolved.

It is against this backdrop that the Commission announced on Thursday that all thematic groups have reached consensus on all eight major agendas, including the federal cities affair.

In a statement, Hirut Gebreselassie, deputy commissioner, disclosed the proposals would be handed over to a 15-member team, which is tasked with reviewing and harmonizing resolutions from all eight thematic groups. The work will involve unifying conflicting ideas and duplicate recommendations, according to the Deputy Commissioner.

During his press brief on Thursday, Chief Commissioner Mesfin Araya (PhD) stressed that participants must consider Ethiopia as the center of every discussion and idea they raise.

“Ethiopia is a mosaic comprising twelve regional states and two federal cities and over 76 nations and nationalities. Discussants should prioritize issues that put all of these at the center, instead of focusing on their respective local issues. Issues that are being raised through the dialogue were created over the past 150 years through the state formation and nation building process. The priority is handing over a better country to the next generation, not standing on yesterday. Every idea and issue that is raised during the dialogue process will be archived as a historical document and used by policymakers, and those who will revise the constitution and federalism system. It also will be used by government and non-government institutions,” said Mesfin.