Currently the Ethiopian population is rapidly increasing. According to experts, the number will rise from 78 million inhabitants today, to 120 million within the next 15 years. At the same time subsistence agriculture can no longer feed this growing population. Consequently migration into the urban centres is accelerating, in order to make use of low-income opportunities here. This situation in conjunction with a housing backlog has led to degradation and overcrowding in informal settlement expansions in and at the peripheries of the cities. Strategies to accomodate this population influx, such as the NesTown Project in the Amhara Region, need to be developed and refined.

But the plans on settlement level also need to be placed into a lager urbanisation policy. This seeks to link the urban potentials but also serves natural protection and securing the the agricultural and cultural resour- ces. The workshop therefore tries to enforce the discussion of these matters in prospective of a regional development framework for the Lake Tana City Region. This would thereby form part of a sustainable poly- centrical urban network on Ethiopian level. 

Participation in the workshop is open to professionals from the related fields of architecture, economic development, environmental issues, social sciences, cultural studies, administration and other fields relevant to the topic of urbanisation in the Lake Tana Region.

The workshop will be hosted by the Bahir Dar University with Vice President Dr. Firew Tegegne, with additional support from Prof. Higelin, Scientific Director of the Institute of Technology. The project is further initiated by Prof. Dr. Läpple from the HafenCity University Hamburg, Prof. Oswald of the Future Cities Laboratory at ETH Zurich, as well as Zegeye Cherenet and Fasil Giorghis of the EiABC at Addis Abeba University.