Capital

There is an awesome force created when willing partners and stakeholders join hands toward social betterment.
News of such collaborative success stories, beyond the practical gains to the immediate beneficiaries, helps to even for an instant, restore our collective faith that our society has a lot of good if we would only work together in harmony.
Private-Public Partnership (hereafter PPP) is still a relatively novel concept in our country.
For too many decades, there has been an imaginary line between the private and public domains and it could not be conceived that the two can, should and must collaborate. Gradually and fortunately, this mindset is being chipped away by the dedicated efforts of many individuals, corporate entities and public servants and their offices. Each PPP success is like a bursting sack of seed, as inspiration-ever contagious, spures more PPP activity.
It is with the greatest appreciation therefore that we bring to public attention the exemplary accomplishment in Dire Dawa brought forth through the fruitful partnership among the Dire Dawa City Administration, BGI Ethiopia and dedicated individuals, upon the inauguration of a unique public square and park in Dire Dawa.
The project can be cited as a model and the perfect case example of PPP, especially in the novel area of empowering urban beautification.
There are 12 known cave systems near Dire Dawa and Harar which boast pre historic rock paintings estimated to be anywhere from a conservative 6, 000 to a liberal 20 thousand years old. Hardly known to except for a few scholars, the cave paintings were discovered in the 20s by French priests and it is only fitting that over 80 years later, it should be a Frenchman, designer Jacques Dubois, to re-discover in a sense, and find a way of promoting the caves through an initiative first born at the turn of this century. His inspired vison, welcomed by Dire Dawa and supported by BGI, has built a model square and park themed on the motif of the cave paintings. Replicas of the paintings adorn huge granite boulders in the square, symbolizing heritage while the income generating schemes sustain the project as well as instilling ownership to the stakeholder community.
Private Public Partnership, with proper channeling of heritage, talent and available resources can provide a tremendous contribution to achieving national and international development targets.
There is no government under any known political system that has been able to provide all that its subjects require. Would that have been the case, we would have had a society whose every whim was attended to by a benevolent Big Brother.
The developed world, for all its democratic devolution, has well grounded institutions of government wielding immense human and material resources. Individual departments within institutions may command funds which exceed the annual budget of many nations. However, even with such power at their disposal, wealthy governments have never dared to claim they are capable of doing everything for everybody. Developing nations, with their yet to mature institutions and therefore, less empowered governments, cannot hope to emerge from poverty solely on the back of an already stretched state. It is therefore incumbent on us to bring to the fore, such endeavors as the Rock Art Living Art project in a bid to inspire such partnership in progress.
The officials of Dire Dawa city administration, the management of BGI- Ethiopia, the honored and distinguished persons and all others who collaborated on the Dire Dawa square Rock Art-Living Art project must feel immensely pleased with their effort. Public Private Partnership has been amply demonstrated.
The Dire Dawa project’s modest expenses of about ETB 3.2 mln were shared between the city administration and BGI for a unique urban beautification scheme containing within it income generation, cultural awareness and site preservation objectives. What is apparent from this PPP success story is that insightful planning and enthusiastic co-operation produce results that far out strip the costs. That’s the beauty of Public Private Partnership - the whole is always greater that the sum. Bravo!