Journeying North to Bahir Dar and Lake Tana

Bahir Dar is the largest City and tourist centre in the Tana Region, lying on the Southern shore of Lake Tana and at the mouth of the Blue Nile River. Lake Tana is seen by many as a jewel and reflects the changing face of Ethiopia - a land of extreme juxtaposition where urban modernity meets ancient orthodoxy.

Meandering through the downtown core of Bahir Dar, you can get a taste of the bustling market and the underlying poverty. It is a crowded downtown filled with shoe shiners, street children playing with garbage, disabled people begging and reverent people resting at the gates of the St. Gyorgis Church. The market, rebuilt a few years ago by the Municipal government after an unfortunate fire, is full of life. Women, children, teenagers try to sell everything from fruits and vegetables to goatskin injera-holders and traditional shama cloth. Further down the main thoroughfare is an open piazza leading to the Lake Tana waterfront. Hundreds of people, young and old, rest by the water. They sit on the terraced patio and along the cobbled waterfront pathway. Young men bathe in the lake while papyrus tankwa’s sail passed in pursue of fish. Dotted island monasteries rise from the lake lines revealing the importance of Christianity in this area.

The Lake Tana waterfront and its landscaped corridors contrast sharply with the images of poverty, unemployment and squatting settlements. This is where a little service can go a long way to improve the lives of the vulnerable. For the next two months, our Canadian Urban Institute team has embarked on a journey away from Addis Ababa to support the city of Bahir Dar with an integrated Waterfront Development Plan.

We are working in partnership with Bahir Dar’s Mayor & the Urban Planning Institute to create a Waterfront Plan that balances the socio-economic needs of the people with that of the environment. This is an exciting project that requires a great deal of collaboration. We have already made inroads into the Bahir Dar University and its Department of Wetlands, Fisheries & Biology. We have also met people everywhere truly vested in the future of Bahir Dar’s waterfront development. While walking along the illegal farming and grazing settlements on the lakefront wetlands, we met so many children eager to be apart of our work.

This week we are (1) delineating the Physical boundary of our Plan and Special Focus Areas and (2) collaborating with the Mayor’s Office to lead consultation meetings with Sub-Sectoral Offices, Kebele Officials and (cross our fingers) key community members. With the Mayor’s guidance, many doors previously shut have been opened. As usual, though, timelines & deadlines are an ephemeral concept here in Ethiopia, constantly changing and evolving at a whim. We will just have to see how it goes. One thing I have learnt is this planning process must be owned by the City & its people for it to be successful… and this is my goal for the next few weeks.

Talk to you soon.

Ciao!

Krystie