Ezana Haddis Weldeghebrael’s career was inspired by his personal experiences growing up in an Addis Ababa slum. Witnessing the destruction of his childhood neighbourhood and the displacement of his neighbours for upscale development sparked his academic pursuit to understand and challenge the forces shaping urban transformations, particularly those affecting low-income groups.
Ezana’s academic journey began with an undergraduate degree in Sociology and Social Anthropology, followed by a postgraduate degree in Regional and Local Development Studies from Addis Ababa University. He furthered his studies with an MSc in Urban Management and Development from the Institute of Housing and Urban Development Studies (IHS), Erasmus University Rotterdam. His postgraduate thesis focused on the factors influencing affected group participation in an inner-city slum redevelopment in Addis Ababa.
Ezana was awarded a PhD in Planning and Environmental Management from the University of Manchester, where he examined the framing of the 2008-2017 inner-city slum redevelopment in Ethiopia and the responses of affected residents within a repressive political context. His doctoral research analysed how Ethiopia's aspiring developmental state uses inner-city slum redevelopment for its political and economic ends and how slum residents strategised to minimise the adverse effect of development-induced displacement under a repressive political context.
Building on his PhD, Ezana secured a GCRF Visiting Fellowship at the University of Manchester in 2020-21. This opportunity allowed him to conduct collaborative, action-oriented research in an inner-city slum area of Addis Ababa. Working with local research partners, he facilitated the mobilisation of women in informal settlements into saving groups and co-produced knowledge about their settlements using community-led mapping and participatory photography. This research aimed to empower disadvantaged women in the COVID-19 response and post-COVID-19 development interventions.
Additionally, he collaborated with other academics on various political economy research projects, such as the “Political Determinants of Rapid Economic Growth in Ethiopia (2004-2018)” and political settlement analysis of poverty reduction performance across four African countries.
In addition to his research experience, Ezana has served as a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the African Cities Research Consortium (ACRC), an FCDO-commissioned research program based at the University of Manchester. In his capacity as a postdoc researcher, he conducted comparative research entitled “The Political Economy of Grassroots Mobilisation of Informal Settlement Residents in Harare, Zimbabwe and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.” He also co-led ACRC’s workstream analysing urban reform coalitions within African cities and beyond. He was also responsible for supporting cross-cutting themes research on climate change, urban finance, and gender; supporting the development of an African urban reform database; collaborating in housing domain research; and publishing academic papers and blog posts.
In addition to his research experience, Ezana has taught at postgraduate level Urban Development Planning course units at the University of Manchester and Ethiopian Civil Service University. He has acted as a course leader for such as Urban Development Planning in Cities of the South (Semester I) and Best Practice Case Studies in Urban Development Planning in Cities of the Global South (Semester II) postgraduate course units at the University of Manchester.