Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic and the epidemics in the preceding 20 years have shown the increased sensitivity of a globalized economy to disease outbreaks, its vulnerability, and lack of redundancy in economic production functions at a global scale. Scenarios for regionalization of economic development could improve the redundancy and resilience of local economies. Such regionalization could also be a favourable scenario to reduce emissions and climate change. Under regionalization, shifts of energy production and consumption would take place. To know and compare regional systems of settlements within and between national states and the functions they avail of is critical in understanding future energy demand in systems of settlements. Much of current global industrial production is located in Asia, but as production costs are increasing in Asia, African countries are developing industrialization policies for their regions. Yet, for a country like Ethiopia, the Paris climate accords can be seen as an impediment to industrial development with a subsequent call to leave the agreement, for example (Teklu, 2018). Given the weak and stressed planning systems in many African countries, most have a scattered and poor understanding of their territory, the role settlements play, and the impact on energy consumption. Such understanding is necessary to have industrialization not go at the cost of climate change. The Spatial Development Framework (SDF) method was developed to support regional planning in countries with weak and stressed planning systems by showing amongst others the functional structure of the systems of settlements (Spaliviero et al. 2019). Since 2012 it has been applied by several governments in Africa and Asia. This paper presents how this method was applied for the government of Rwanda and discusses how it can be applied in Ethiopia for industrialization and energy policy development for regional systems of settlements in order to address dilemmas of regionalization, industrialization and climate change reduction in the Global South. References Spaliviero, M., L. Boerboom, M. Gibert, G. Spaliviero & M. Bajaj (2019) The Spatial Development Framework to facilitate urban management in countries with weak planning systems. International Planning Studies, 24, 235-254. Teklu, T. W. (2018) Should Ethiopia and least developed countries exit from the Paris climate accord? - Geopolitical, development, and energy policy perspectives. Energy Policy, 120, 402-417
