 Thank you, Raheel, for such an emotionally touching presentation. I just, you know, I raised some of the questions, but I would like also to give the opportunity for the other panelists to reflect on some of the issues that were raised. I think the Gaye gave us this picture of, you know, that we are facing into disaster, but urbanization is the way out. And better than him, I know you have been working on the master plan of Addis Ababa for some time. And you are, you're seeing, I mean, in a way you're involved in the planning of the future of our city and also in relation to the country. So what you say is really the main challenge in this mismatch of making master plans, plans and realizing them. And then I go back to, I go to Mahder, Mahder who is not only an architect and a planner, but also a media person. He educates our public through his radio program. So I'm sure you have this encounter of people, you know, ordinary residents and what they think about urbanism and what we do. And also how this reflects in their daily life. And what do you think is, you know, what Rahel raised as the public participation? What people think where their city is going or do they have a say at all? Are they participating? Are they contributing? Or is there anyone listening to what they want to say? What they want to tell us? If you, I think, and then Dieter, I think you would really, you know, I want to just throw questions to all of you because you'll probably get a bit of time to reflect, but please make it short. I'm making some questions. Dieter, you raised the industrial park, the foreign direct investment and so on. And then to director raised the micro small enterprise, there is two differing views on how to develop urbanization, foreign direct investment, industrial parks and industrialization, manufacturing industry. And then micro small enterprise as an alternative approach in cities, which is more inclusive, which involves a lot of people and so on. So please reflect on this. Thank you very much. Thank you, LSE, for this opportunity for myself, but also for the city, because it's really an eye opener for most of us around here to see bits and pieces from all over the world. But as one presenter yesterday said it, I mean, after all the questions that we have as human beings are all the same wherever we go. I mean, we need to live, we need to work, we need to play somewhere within the city. And as Facil just said it, having worked on this or being engaged in this production of the master plan of Addis Ababa for the last six years, and also being part of the 10 year one, earlier one, 10 years ago. I would say the plans are there. I mean, I'm not saying that the plans are perfect, but at least there is a plan that is already put in place for the city, which takes in the issues that were raised since yesterday around here, trying to create a compact city. Addis doesn't have any expansion area, so we have to build high. I take into consideration the Paris person that said building high is not always having densities. We can reach densities with walk up apartments wherever we need it, but we need to densify the city. There are some areas where the housing is so devastating, I don't know how to say. Yesterday the person from Mexico was saying housing is different from making houses. And yes, it goes close to my heart and again, quite emotional talking about the city around where I've lived for a long time. But seeing people walking up nine floors with their 20 liter jarricans, since they don't have water or electricity, is not providing housing for people. So as I said, the focus for mass transport is there, the shift to bring in pedestrian oriented streets to give people the ability to walk, putting in the amenities on the streets, and different facilities like public toilets that we don't have in the cities. It's something that we have put in the plans. But when we come to the implementation, I would say there is a major disconnect. The lack of continuity, I'm sorry, I just can't be not emotionally talking about this, I think. But the lack of continuity in the ideas that we put in, the shared vision for the long term, shared by all, by everyone is something that we miss. Each time that we make new reforms, that we change the political directions, we start anew each time. So things are not going as flowing as we think it through. So the lack of continuity, institutional setup and institutional memories are missing. The second thing that was raised also yesterday is this thing of understanding the context. Nothing can be copy-pressed from other places. I mean, we need to understand the context. The thing that worked in some places around the world might work for us, but they might not be. So we need people to kind of decipher the details in that and see where the opportunities are, where the solution should be that fit to our context. This is the second thing that I would say. The last point I want to put in is the data issue that was raised earlier on with the transport issue. But data is needed. I mean, we plan on the land, and if we don't have a clear land registry put in place, if we don't move to an automation type of system that can be easily updated and easily available for everyone, I'm sure people miss that, or a lot of you from other places. Maybe you have a clean land registry system put in place, and you know who on which land and parcels don't fit one on top of the others. And this kind of things have to be clear. And these nitty-gritty things and the details have to be put in place before thinking of the largest key. So I mean, I'm sure we have put up a lot of time to put in this two days conference to put up all this remarkable stages and even put maybe the figures outside there. When we talk about the population figure, if I ask somebody in this room how much people there is, I mean, what's the population of Hades? Maybe I would say four million. Another person would say maybe five. Some would go even to 10 million. Somebody has to know, has to say the right figures, and this is the underground work. They're building the base of it. Thank you so much. I respect some of the professionals who chose to stay in this very contested and sometimes very difficult environment to work in urban planning and related assignments by the government. I would start by the, who says how the urban agenda is set in Ethiopia, and who sets the urban agenda? Starting from the transformation of the urban agenda and also how to plan it. That is the main question that we need to be asking, especially we want to transform the urbanization. I didn't get your message, you were trying to say something. So I will start with the context, the context of understanding the Ethiopian situation starting from ideology, the Cold War, a country that was fortified for so many years. The questions of federalism that's not even... I hope this is not going to be another lecture. I'm sorry, because I know you can say a lot about these things. Are you self-censoring me? No, no, no. I'm just trying to be fair. Well, I'll use my time, but you took some seconds, so please count it. So this, I'm not here to lecture, even though you said on the radio I get educated by engaging with the public, which is a different medium. So when I say we have to understand the context is from where we are as a snapshot and to solve our bigger problems that we cannot deny. So it starts also from governance in government that the learning curve takes a long time, that by the time that our leaders get educated about the subject, they get relocated. So it's a new start for all of us. And there is a notion that the government or we are the people, we focus on the visible things and the preparation, like the land information. If you compare Gassabo with Kigali and Kazanchi, it's a completely different thing. So if Christian was here, he would have said a different thing about these things. So yesterday, Elias was saying that the Kaveli houses were cheaper and they were affordable to do. But why? Because they were nationalized from other citizens of the city. So it means there are lots of elephants in the room that we didn't deal with. So they are like a herd. So these things need to be discussed. So I would say the next challenge for Ethiopia would be, as I see it, is because hoping that we'll solve our federalistic and political and religious issues that are popping up left and right. But they're educated and they're educated. The rural and the urban. So the half and the half of those are visible here and we are seeing the testing is a very sour test. So I would say yesterday, Irene and Kate were ping-ponging. They were saying that China has an agenda for Africa and Africa should have an agenda for China. But I would say we need, as Ethiopians and Africans, we need to have an agenda for all. Because in my lifetime, I'm a fairly young man, and as you see in my lifetime I saw the Italians, the French, the Chinese, the Londoners, the Arup, the GTV, all of them are the interests and the way that we deal with them is not controlled. So these are the things that we need to really be focused on. But coming back to the planning transformation that I would say is the three things that an accountable commitment is very important for us. The government and we as a nation commit a lot, but we need to be accountable for our commitments. The second one is we have to have the finance and the power to do so. And the last one is to have a shared vision. This discussing the master plan has been an elephant in the room for Ethiopia. That it is there, many people oppose it, some people support it, but it's not being discussed. But at the end, we need to discuss what alternative, eventually we have to discuss about this thing. So what are the mechanisms that we are going to put to guide the urban transformation? Issues like ownership. Yesterday, Christian said the country decided, but Belina said the government decided. So who owns the city? Do the people that own the city or the governments of the city? Who owns the infrastructure? Do I own the infrastructure or you own the infrastructure? So these are the things we need to discuss. But the biggest threat that I see is if we have to urbanize like Zagaya was eloquently saying, we are going to deal with big issues. Like three-fourths of the building infrastructure components are imported. Can we sustain three-fourths of the important with a very minimum manufacturing capacity and also very sliding export? So we need to discuss with digs where we are going to get the power. We need to plan for that too. Not we can not only plan for the urbanization, but to summarize it, we have not wet wood, but I call it the youth tsunami in Ethiopia, that the mobile connectivity is something that's not being discussed here. Like with connectivity, within ten years, from two million, we have reached 65 million, believing the statistics of the government. So 65% mobile penetration, 18 million data users. All these are important figures we need to understand so we can plan it. Because in the 60s, when people were discussing, they have to come to Aratkilo in Piazza to understand what the ideas were. But now instantly somebody in Barda is listening to what I'm saying about the urban agenda of Ethiopia. So this fast and efficient way of communication needs to be addressed carefully. So my thing will be is how do we transfer knowledge, including the knowledge that LSE is bringing. And the other one is can we understand the scale of the challenge starting from land management. And finally is rule of law. The rule of law needs to be respected carefully. And to do that, the debates of urban debate should come out to the society. Thank you very much. I'm sure this is enormous. There are incredible challenging questions and issues. So we cannot, I think we have also to give time to the audience, we cannot resolve them here. But let's hear also some, let's get some questions from the audience. I think we will start, let's start with this, with the lady here. I will collect a couple of questions and then depending on who it is direct to, you will answer. Hello. Thank you. My name is Atta Madate from Nairobi. I'm a practicing architect and a lecturer at the University of Nairobi. For me, it is just to make a comment on something that has been alluded to very briefly by Vera in the opening remarks as well as Deeter and Patrick, which is that in Africa especially, the countryside and rural development is not, it's not necessarily a sector on its own called rural development. It is actually urbanizing and digitizing at a very rapid rate to the point where the weight hood of the youthful population is choosing in urban areas to move to the countryside. And the reason this is important for Africa is because we still have very important connections to our countryside. For example, you'll find that many of the Nairobi, Nairobi's urban population go to the countryside three times or four times a year to visit their families, their grandparents, and it's an important connection. And if you don't believe me, try visit Nairobi in the next month between December 15th and December 28th. You'll experience something called urban to rural migration. You'll not experience any issues in the urban area. There will be no traffic, there will be no people, there will be no cars. So perhaps we also need to consider that rural development is not a separate entity on its own. And if you look further, we are working with the University of Nairobi, the Guggenheim and OMA, Remkulas, on a countryside research called Countryside Future of the World that is going to have an exhibition in the Guggenheim New York in 2020, which is looking at countryside development all over the world, not as a separate entity, but as a solution to urbanization, which causes decentralization and evolution of economics, technology, finance, and people. So I think it's something that needs to go on to the table. Thank you. Thank you. It's good that you raise this because Ethiopia also plans to build 80,000 rural towns. This is one of the plans. And yes, who was next? I'll give this to you. When I give the numbers, it's number two. There I have to take one of you. Choose which one. Okay, now it's three, four. Hello, Matteo Robiglio from Politecnico of Torino, Italy. A question about typology. The African city has been a constant inspiration for European and North American planners and architects due to its incrementality and mixed use. And it seems that this path is abandoned, especially in the typologies that you apply that I see while going around the country and around the disability. The new development seems monofunctional and inherently rigid in their typology. The housing typology that I'll build have lost the vibrant mixity of the traditional, a disability in traditional African cities. And maybe that there is a path that could be pursued and it's a path towards an African way to the new city and to modernity. I still find inspiring the brief that Haile Selassie had given to architect Mazzadimi and to the Barnero Enterprise in making the public buildings that made at Isabeba the real capital of Africa in the 60s. And it was the idea of representing an alternative to European and North American international style. So maybe in other ways this could be an issue for making the new city. I'm Dawid Benti, a lecturer at EIABC. And I'm part of a consortium of European and Ethiopian universities that is studying informality, informal housing that was funded by the European Union. And while we were doing this study, there was hardly a document about informality in the master plan or on the structural plan. And you know these, there is now for the past like six or five months there is an explosion more than you can imagine. I live at the edge of the city. And every day I can count like a dozen of houses coming up every night. In the morning I see, oh, this new house. And these are genius people, you know, they have come, they have even started claiming like the very place that people can walk. And it's explosive, I mean, you cannot imagine. And these people, they know the process and this invasion and this explosion of informality happens when there is a kind of a turbulence at the top brass level, when a kind of, you know, government or governance changes, when there is a kind of political activity, hard heated political activity, then they do it. And what they do is they're using the roof with, they're building the roof with an old rusted corrugated iron sheet. They thought that when the aerial photograph is taken from the top it will look old and that would give them a kind of, you know, security because they would think that, I ask them, that's why they will tell you that if, you know, aerial picture is taken, it looks old. Then that gives them a security. And there is no discussion from, I would like to ask to the regio, from the plan commission, there is no discussion of informality. I mean, it's explosive. All the rivers are, especially if you go to the fringes, there is hardly a place to throw a stone. So nobody is discussing it, not the strategic plan. So we hardly found anybody from the government. There is only one course at the civil service university who teaches informality, only one course in the nation. Thank you very much. Legos and we Nigerians, we Nigerians generally were famously chaotic and chaos is our gift to the world. So you're all welcome. I'm saying this not so, in not so much jest as to say if a lot of you, Addis Ababan and Ethiopians would just visit Legos, come and see me for a week, you will come back, all your tears will be wiped away. You will realize that you are still so way ahead. On a more serious note, I've been thinking about the resilience strategy for Legos and what comes to mind is that looking at it and just looking through the chaos and seeing the order, seeing the natural order that emerges through informality and through people's everyday decisions, I realize that the real strength of Legos and I'm sure this goes for Addis Ababan, goes back to social capital. It goes back to people, it goes back to culture, it goes back to history and I'm not saying that in a schmaltzy, sentimental way. I mean that when the state is missing, when the state is missing in action, people go back to something inside them and I think what you can do is to keep that something alive in the first place. Don't lose it, don't let it go. Ethiopians are very disciplined people, extremely disciplined people. I walk down the streets here, I've watched just for a couple of days but I can see and I know from your history, you have a strong history of socialism and strong state control, what that gave you was a strong sense of order and you mustn't lose that order, that order is important. That order is going to be challenged and you must get used to the idea of it being challenged and the only way you can do that is by having these conversations. I know it's tedious, it's tedious and it's painful but I'm so excited because to see a minister of government being challenged by a media person, this hardly happens in Nigeria, okay? This is wonderful, this is good. A little bit painful but honestly, I think this is the way forward and if Ethiopians and Addis Ababans hold on to that core and what you must do and I'm rounding up one minute one of the books that has influenced me the most recently is by Yuan Yuan Ang, How China Escaped the Poverty Trap and it's essential reading and she gives some insight into what China did and essentially what China did in 1978 is that they gave themselves permission to challenge the rules because the rule said that if you're a communist you didn't, you know, if you're a communist politically you had to go be communist economically and China gave themselves permission to say no we will stay communist politically but we will embrace capitalism and they made it work for themselves. They broke the rules and they wrote their own rules and I think Africans and Ethiopians, all of us must give ourselves permission to write new rules. It's very important because ten seconds because the people who wrote the rules that run the world did not consult us and so we reserve the right to write new rules, thank you. To say something about the master plan implementation why we are not successful very much in our master plan implementation though Addis Ababa is undergoing very rapid urbanization it is common that some of the challenges of urbanization are we are encountering and we are facing them and when we refer back to why we are not successful in fully implementing the master plan one of the main reason is there are some gaps in the preparation of the master plan. Where the gap lies in encouraging individuals in different work of life to participate because in the master plan what we are going to do is we are going to plan their vision, the vision of the country the imagination of the people and I also believe that more participation and the engagement of the people has to be there in the master plan because the master plan is for the people and the contribution of the people has to be also immense and I believe that we are not late because many parts of Addis Ababa will be built during our lifetime and if we are going to have shared values a shared vision where we are going to collaborate nationally, locally and internationally we will be more synergetic we need new insight, we need new energy new knowledge, new skill and new attitude because we are going to build and we are going to rebuild a very historic city where heritage is at the center and we are going to see the architect contribution of our grandfather we can see yesterday through these heritage and the heritage are the results of the best mind of our grandfathers and it has to be at the front of our development and recently, you see if you know more about Ethiopia, some one years back surviving as a country, surviving as a city by itself is one thing now we are in a position where citizens participation at different level at the city level the city government is strongly working and discussing with the youth those who are making the landscape of the politics the landscape of the social transformation and the last escape of economic transformation we are going to bring and we can boost the social and economic transformation because we are discussing with the youth with the elders, with the scholars and with different institutions, universities and the research institutions because we need new energy we cannot bring different things we are doing the same thing that's why we open our doors we open our heartes to the globe so that a problem somewhere is a problem everywhere and this is in a very rapid urbanization and a lot of opportunities and this is not only at the heart of the Sahabians it is also the core of the social and the economic transformation of the country one issue that has been raised the issue of informality it is obvious that comments that were taken the issue of informal settlement and we identified and we are working on with the stakeholders how to address the issue of this informality when the political tension is there top there, the informalities are there and we are strategically identifying what is the cause of that informality and how we can systematically address the issue of this informality that's what we are working on and once upon I will call all scholars from different parts of the world from different parts of Ethiopia that we have a good vision a good political commitment leadership to make this historic country to have a very historic city where one can have a decent life a good place to live, a good place to work a good place to enjoy and the emotions that our scholars here and different individuals as brought is an additional energy that in any of the development activities that we are going to undertake we have to consult you you have to be part and parcel of the development because the development is for the people and is by the people thank you very much it's very encouraging to hear you speak and I think this is probably part of the reform thank you what did I say yeah when we talk about the plan of course we have plans on paper but there is no any discipline to implement them or to to realise them practically so the lack of discipline starts from the government itself and the awareness of the people also very less but nowadays the problems I think big issue professional plans are right now they are politicised by the way it becomes hot political agenda in Ethiopia nobody can't talk about national plan about regional plan so plans lead us to conflict everywhere, everywhere in the country so I think professionals in this sector you have a big assignment there is no any relation between politics and plan just plan is a development of urbanisation but you remember the conflict happened before some years back and even now if you go to parliament or if you go to House of Federation nobody wants to listen about urban planning and the national plan so I think we have both of us we have assignment to clear the minds of policy makers and the minds of populations that planning is nothing to do with politics and with regional responsibilities so this is the first point I want to mention the settlement especially nowadays the informal settlement as one person mentioned it it is massively increasing in cities so there is nobody to protect the land nobody to protect the land so this will lead us to another security issue so the cities should give attention to protect the land and to manage the informal settlements saying this there are many many issues many paradoxes raised in this panel discussion and it is difficult to give some answer just the brainstorming is very important thank you the question is really the minister I wonder how you envisage a fair competition between the private sector and the public domain when it when you talk about housing the minute you as a government start competing with the private sector on social housing for example the private sector immediately runs away from social housing and concentrates on upscale units and I have seen this in many countries where the government is in such a hurry to add units as the population demands it but my advice to you based on my 30 years experience in this domain is to really just give the terms and the conditions for the social housing to be built by the private sector and don't get into that if you scare them away if you scare them away you will lose a lot of potential resources and the way to make sure that you don't have abuse is to give them so much land that they have too much to lose if they start abusing what they have and don't give them too much time so that they don't sell expensively but rather are forced to sell very quickly to get to the next stage but if you start by offering on the market to the poor people heavily subsidized units you will run out of money very soon you make them look like they are crooks because they are trying to sell the same unit much more expensively and the simple man will not understand why he should pay so much more to the private sector except that the private sector is trying to make a lot of profit so it disrupts the whole mobilization in what you want which is to add millions and millions of social housing units to the public you were saying urbanization is not related with politics I could, it will be possible if it's possible you can explain it a little bit more for me because as my understanding planning for urbanization was the main cause for the change of the political establishment just recently so if you could just elaborate it a little bit and for the other thinkers especially for Rahel and maybe Fassil I would like to understand your narrative of history like when I was your student also you define the cultural heritage of artists specifically in the era of this colonial or the Italian occupation so would it be possible would it be possible if you if there could be a new thinking of having an understanding of history of artists maybe 100 or 150 years before the Italian occupation and then you could be maybe using it for the planning process also this was a very heated but very interesting discussion you have, I think unfortunately we have to close it I would really encourage you all to come to the panelists and ask them these questions and we need to understand that at the beginning the guy was saying we have huge challenges we are very ambitious we don't have time we have to find the way to do it exactly the country and its challenges we do not have time and in this panel we don't have time now to continue so let's have the discussion at lunch and because they are endless I mean we can open this for the next two days and it will never end so please have the conversation at lunch for our honoured respected panelists and so on leave the floor to Philip, thank you thank you very much Faisil so we have now a 45 minute break be back here in the room please by 2.30 and I'd like to thank the panelists the presenters for this great session on Ethiopia