What`s your mission as a local expert in Harare?
I work for in traffic and transportation sector in Harare city. My mission is to improve the traffic and transportation system here. Therefore I promote the active mobility with bicycles and develop a sustainable urban mobility plan.
What´s your working situation?
I have two offices: one is situated at Harare City, the other one at GIZ Headquarter. The initial idea was that I work full time in the Higher City Council Office at the traffic and transportation department. But the problem is: there we don`t have internet. That´s a challenge for the daily work; we can´t write E-Mails, do retails or join online-sessions. As a solution I go to the City Office which is situated eleven kilometres from my home in the morning hours, after lunch I visit my second office at GIZ, which is close to my house. It is a creative and good solution. For some people in non-development countries it means the end of the world if there is no internet. They forget that they can call each other or even meet. In my daily work I speak very often face to face with my colleagues and other people. I love to work and life in Harare. My team is creative, active and open minded.
Mobility, traffic und transport – can you describe the situation in Harare?
Next to the place I live there´s not much traffic. But in the inner city it´s chaotic. For me and the people who live here it´s normal: we use these roads every day. But people from outside don`t like to go to the centre because it´s to chaotic compared with other parts of the city. One of the main reasons for this chaotic situation is that the public transportation system does not work well. We don´t have trains or an underground. The number of buses in Harare is not enough for the number of people here. So most part of the people in the lower city area use private cars. Lot of people also use a system called Mushika-shika. It´s a private and illegal public transport: the drivers pick up the people unauthorised points and drive them wherever they want. In normal cars there maximal five persons, at Mushika-shika there are up to ten persons in one car. Mushika-shikas are too full of people, drive too fast and are old and shabby. They are the worst part in this dysfunctional system – and the one which is used by most of the people.
Are there other details which should be improved?
We also have Problems with electricity, it often only works for some hours a day. That´s not only a challenge in the daily life: the fridges are out of order, in winter the people are not able to have heating on. For traffic this problem means that traffic lights and street lightning doesn`t work. Because this you risk your life when you use the streets of Harare night. As local expert and architect I´m here to improve this system. In order to do this me and my colleagues from traffic department are analysing the traffic situation and map the streets. Currently there is no actual map for the inner city. The existing plans are on paper and at about 1858. Now in digital area we have material from colonial times! I could not believe this when I arrived here.
What other possibilities are there to improve the situation?
Bicycles are a good step to improve the transport situation. Many people here have no car and public busses don´t exist. So this is a good alternative. The children can move to school, the merchants to the market other people for work. But actually it´s dangerous to ride a bicycle in Harare. For me the traffic light is fundamental. But also at day time it is risky. The drivers don´t respect the bicycles. There´s no easy solution for the traffic system in Harare. Nevertheless the city has a lot of potential for bicycles: at the colonial area the people in Harare used bicycles. The paths are still there, at the moment they are destroyed and need to be renewed. Furthermore the city is flat so you can ride a bike here easily. In a survey we asked the people if they wanted to use bicycles. They result: yes, they would like to use bikes but the traffic situation is to unsecure. So we try to improve it. As a part of this project my colleagues from the Traffic and Transportation Department cooperated with two schools to improve the situation around the buildings. What happens on the streets around? Do the traffic lights work?
We also talked to stakeholders. I was really surprised: 30 persons from civil society, NGOs, artists, companies – a very diverse group wanted to support us. We decided to start a bicycle day in June 2022. At the end is was very successful! Normally if you organize a big project with the municipally it takes a lot of time. But not in this case. We developed this day very fast and also the concept for two open streets. Here we closed the streets for the cars and opened it for the people. At the first the people were sceptical because in Harare many persons are used to drive by car instead of walking. But in the end they enjoyed it! They liked to seed what happens on the street, they talked to each other, participated on special activities like Zumba, cross fit or yoga. “When is the next event like this?” they asked.
What´s your role in the municipal partnership between Harare and Munich?
I encourage people of both cities to communicate and change information. Delegations from Harare visit Munich and vice versa. Our last visit in Munich was in September 2022. In Munich they showed us a presentation about security on the roads. I a year about 22 people in Munich die because of traffic incidents. In Harare there are more than 2000 people a year. My colleagues where surprised that Munich tries to realise the “Vision zero”; no one should die on the streets there. In Harare at the moment a vision like this is unreachable. Sometimes the exchange between Harare und Munich is challenging because life, plans and dreams of the people in the countries are very different. Therefore it´s very important that people visit each other – so they experience the reality of the other country. The visitors from Germany e.g. understand easier what it means to work without internet, when they have been to Harare. The people from Harare on the other hand are surprised when they see on the Streets in Bavaria that it`s possible to use bikes in a relatively save way. Munich learned about the creativity and open minded working processes of Harare. Here they open the streets for pedestrians without practising it. The municipal partners also discussed the idea to collect and send second hand bicycles from Munich to Harare. Together we analysed: what will be the costs of transport? Is it helpful for environment to send bicycles such a long way? Sometimes the things that are sent to Africa are not useful. In case of the bikes both cities agreed that it´s neither economic nor sustainable.
How important are you as person in this project?
I`m very important for the communication. I have worked for GIZ in several countries and projects. In these jobs I learned that communication between different countries is not always fluent. If you call to my colleagues here you possibly speak to the wrong persons. I know the suitable contact persons for several projects. In some cases I have to push activities or ask for answers – and then we find solutions together. My prejob communication facilitates many conversations. It´s important to support the people to develop capacities. For this I prepare team meetings, make week plans or help to answer requests for projects from Germany. Recently I developed a team meeting with schools. I was super happy when a colleague told me after the meeting: It was really useful! Before that he thought it was waste of time. Results like this encourage me to work with the people in Harare.
