 Good morning everybody. Director of Excellency, Vera Songwei, UN Secretary, Undersecretary General, and Executive Secretary of the UNECA, Mohammad Sawak, Mayor of the City of Accra, the Capital City of Ghana, Ulrich Honring, Deputy Mayor of the City of Leipzig, Germany, Jean-Louis Misica, Deputy Mayor of Paris, Anna Herrosen, Executive Director of Alfred Herrosen-Geselschacht, Honourable Guests from Ethiopia, and all around the world. Welcome to Addis Ababa, the capital city of Ethiopia, and the diplomatic capital of our continent, Africa. I'm very pleased to welcome you today to Addis Ababa, especially during this time of a paradigm shift and sweeping change for our country, Ethiopia, as well as the capital city of Addis Ababa. Addis has shouldered huge responsibilities and privilets of hosting different regional and international organizations, including African Union and the United Nations of Economic Commission for Africa. The people of the city and Ethiopians in general are humbled and gracious to be chosen for such a big task, and we are working day and night to meet the expectations of our brothers and sisters from their cities. We are now on a journey of effecting plans to make Addis Ababa really measure up to the tasks it's been historically chosen to accomplish by its African brothers and sisters, the international community, and of course the people of Addis Ababa, which is to make it a comfortable city to live in and visit. Therefore, we are rebranding it to look like the flower it was meant to look and feel like from the outset. There are different ongoing and upcoming massive projects which will help create job opportunities for many in the city in addition to realizing a health and accommodative Addis Ababa for all. Currently, we're working hard on creating urban parks on riversides and some of their recently reclaimed vacant areas, kept idle by developers for many years to improve the environment of our city, both for its residents and visitors. Some of these projects are also designed to address problems of housing and unemployment among others in a setting where people actually live and they are also already familiar with. Ladies and gentlemen, previously Addis Ababa has not been considering its poor people who are the majority of the city's population and this has led to a creation of a big gap between the haves and have nots and ended up stealing up a question of equity and economic equality. Now this trend has been interrupted for good and replaced with principle of inclusive growth for all in a strong bid to give opportunity for everyone in the city. Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, at this juncture I would like to express my immense gratitude for London School of Economics and the hardworking partnering organizers for this conference on developing urban futures for choosing Addis Ababa to host LAC's 2018 Urban Age Conference and your perspective of making cities around the globe including Addis Ababa fit to live in for the residents and the visitors they welcome. Thank you, but know that as urbanization is at its boom in cities like ours, your practical assistance in managing it well, it's much expected now more than any time before. Thank you so much.