Fasil Giorghis and Zegeye Cherenet, members of the NESTown Group

A test project for establishing new rural towns was initiated in 2008. In 2010, its implementation started, under the name BuraNEST in Bura kebele, Libokemkem woreda of the Amhara Regional State.3 The planning, design, and implementation process was consulted by a consortium of local and international experts known as the NESTown Group. BuraNEST is a striking case, where self-built initiatives are planned and organised within a governance structure whose instinctive disposition is top-down with firm regulations. This conversation by Anteneh Tesfaye Tola is with the local experts of the NESTown Group: Fasil Giorghis, chair of Conservation of Urban and Architectural Heritage, and Zegeye Cherenet, Head of Emerging Cities Lab (ECL), both at Addis Ababa University’s EiABC4. This interview illustrates the contemporary challenges planners face in dealing with forming New Towns in emerging economies such as Ethiopia.