Districts of Ethiopia, also calledworedas (Amharic:ወረዳ;Oromo:Aanaa[1]woreda), are the third level of the administrative divisions ofEthiopia – afterzones and theregional states.
These districts are further subdivided into a number ofwards calledkebele neighbourhood associations, which are the smallest unit of local government in Ethiopia.
Districts are typically collected together intozones, which form aregion; districts which are not part of a zone are designated Special Districts and function asautonomous entities. Districts are governed by a council whose members are directly elected to represent eachkebele in the district. There are about 670 rural districts and about 100 urban districts.
Terminology varies, with some people considering the urban units to beworeda, while others consider only the rural units to beworeda, referring to the others as urban or city administrations.[2]
Although some districts can be traced back to earliest times—for example, theYem special woreda, theGera andGomma woreda which preserve the boundaries ofkingdoms that were absorbed into Ethiopia, and theMam Midrina Lalo Midir woreda of a historicprovince of Ethiopia (in this case, two of the districts ofMenz)[citation needed]— many are of more recent creation. Beginning in 2002, more authority was passed to woreda by transferring staff and budgets from the regional governments.[citation needed]
In Ethiopia, the woredas comprise three main organs: a council, an executive and a judicial. The Woreda Council is the highest government organ of the district, which is made up of directly elected representatives from each kebele in the woredas. The representative of the people in each kebele is accountable to their electorate. The woreda chief administration is the district's executive organ that encompasses the district administrator, deputy administrator, and the head of the main sectoral executive offices found in the district, which are ultimately accountable to the district administrator and district council. The quasi-judicial tasks belong to the Security and Justice administration. In addition to woredas, city administrations are considered at the same level as the woredas. A city administration has a mayor whom members of the city council elected. As different regional constitutions govern woredas, the names of the bodies may differ.[3]
"Special woredas" are a subgroup ofworedas (districts) that are organized around the traditional homelands of anethnic minority[citation needed], and are outside the usual hierarchy ofzones in their respectiveRegion[citation needed]. These special woredas have many similarities to autonomous areas in other countries.[clarification needed]
^Yilmaz, Serdar; Venugopal, Varsha (2008).Local Government Discretion and Accountability in Ethiopia(PDF). Working Paper 08-38. International Studies Program, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University. pp. 2–5. Archived fromthe original(PDF) on 20 October 2013. Retrieved22 June 2013.
![[icon]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=https%3a%2f%2fwikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aWiki_letter_w_cropped.svg)
