The project to execute a modern residential address system in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia is showing promising progress according to the Integrated Land Management Information Project Development Office.

The program was launched in two sub-cities as part of the plan to set up an address system dividing streets, blocks and house numbers.

A manual has been prepared to help number each street and house in partnership with hansa Luftbild Consulting, a German company according to Ephrem Belete, Office Unit Coordinator. An address map has already been developed for two woredas and 98% of sign posts have already been put up he said.

Woreda 3 is representative of a relatively modern neighborhood and Woreda 10 is a good representation of irregular settlements according to Ephrem. The unit chose to select sample woredas from different sub-cities to increase the reliability of the address map development and other related to be carried out in the future.

A particular challenge during the pilot has been that several houses are found in the same compound in areas of the city with irregular settlement he said. The city is in the process of preparing a detailed directive to simplify the challenges in labeling house numbers according to Ephrem.

Houses are labeled with numbers on doorways as per their distance from point zero as well as a metric numbering system with odd numbers found on the left side and even numbers on the right he explained.

The new system will be important in various social services such as ambulance service, fire fighting, postal service and population census Ephrem noted.

Source: Ethiopian Press Agency