Reconnecting with Mohamed Halfani and Beacon Mbiba in Addis

A precious moment at the Expert Group Meeting on the Africa Regional position for the Habitat III conference taking place in Quito in October. My old friend from Tanzania Mohamed Halfani is to my left – we met in the 1980s, and worked together on urban governance. He then did five years with the African Union based in Addis and until he retired recently he was at UN Habitat based in Nairobi. Now he is based in Dar, and enjoying not travelling, his children and grandchildren. But does not look a day older than when I first met him. Then there is Beacon Mbiba, who was a youngster back in the late 1980s when we started working with Mohamed and me – then from his based at University of Zimbabwe. Now he is looking very distinguished and based at Oxford Brookes in Oxford, with his family. In the middle is Edlam Yemeru, a dynamic Ethiopian who heads up the urban branch of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, and effectively the host of our meeting. Reconnecting and catching up with Mohamed and Beacon is such a great way to start 2016!