Main Article Content

Abstract

Federalism as an ideology about state political structure “holds that the interaction of human affairs is best reflected in the celebration of unity in diversity within the state. Regarding this, the main purpose of this study was to investigate the major challenging factors in the implementation of Ethiopian ethnic based Federalism in managing ethnic diversity in Gambella particularly in case of Itang Special Woreda through qualitative research method using both proportional stratified random sampling for selecting 45 participants and purposive sampling to select 10 kebele. Focus group discussion, in-depth interview and field observation were used as means of collecting first hand data from the fields. Beside, many journal Articles and government reports were also reviewed as secondary data for further analysis purposes. Regarding this the collected data were analyzed accordingly by employing thematic descriptive analysis method. Based on these, the major challenging factor in managing ethnic diversity in the woreda emanate from the existing challenge of maintaining positive intergroup relationship; frequent prevalence of ethnic conflicts as far as the settlement pattern of people is concerned and easy manipulation of community based on their identity which paved the way for the use of identity in local politics by the elites. However, in relation to it achievement, the study reveals that the local people of the woreda has attained undeniable political rights to self-governance which was highly restricted by the past regimes of the country before the introduction of this federal state structure since 1995 by the EPRDF. Based on this, it is argued that in order to achieved the desirable outcomes of the current transplanted federal state arrangement of the country, the woreda administrative councils as well as the regional state government should highly steadfast themselves in playing enormous roles to established a positive and advantageous environments where problems of ethnicity, political and economic antagonism as well can be settled to promote co-existence between and/or among diversified ethnic groups of the woreda.

Article Details