Sustainability in Environment ISSN 2470-637X (Print) ISSN 2470-6388 (Online) Vol. 1, No. 2, 2016 www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/se 98 Roadside Planting in Ethiopia: Turning a Problem into an Opportunity Marta Agujetas Perez 1* , Fredu Nega Tegebu 2 & Frank van Steenbergen 1 1 MetaMeta Research, s-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands 2 The Horn Economic and Social Policy Institute (HESPI), Addis Ababa, Ethiopia * Marta Agujetas Perez, E-mail: marta@metameta.nl Abstract Roads have both positive and negative impacts in the areas surrounding them. With the expansion of roads growing at an inexorable speed in Ethiopia and all Sub-Saharan Africa, these impacts need to be well understood. A questionnaire was used to gather information on road-related impacts on the rural population. A total of 529 sample households were selected in Tigray, Northern Ethiopia. The three most common consequences cited by respondents in order of importance were dust, flooding and erosion. Close to 44% of the respondents said that the occurrence of dust has increased after construction of the road. The reduction of yield estimated by farmers ranges from 10% to 50%. Close to 11% of the sample households faced decline in crop production and income due to dust lifted up from roads. The breakpoint for road dust occurred approximately at 200 to 280 meters from the road. Roadside plantations along rural roads have proven to mitigate road-related impacts and restore the ecological balance. When linked to rural development programs, roadside planting can create employment while generating a reliable source of income for rural communities. Keywords roads, dust, tree planting, employment, Ethiopia 1. Introduction The road network in Ethiopia is rapidly expanding. Investment in road infrastructure is the largest and geographically most widely distributed investment in the country. The government formulated the Comprehensive Road Sector Development Program (RSDP) in 1997 to address the constraints the road sector faced for long. During the period of the RSDP until 2014, the government constructed around 72,971 km new additional roads of all type. In 1997 the total road network in Ethiopia was 26,550 km and reached 99,522 km in 2014. Ethiopia has a vision of joining middle-income countries by 2028. To achieve this goal, the country needs to increase its road network to 201,750 km by 2028. Road development is also a priority area in the African continent. The Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA) will cost around US$360 billion between 2011 and 2040, being 37% of these costs projected for transport infrastructure. Moreover, infrastructure spending in Sub-Saharan