University College of Dublin’s Centre for Humanitarian Action (UCD CHA), Ireland in collaboration with Wolaita Sodo University (WSU), Ethiopia has designed joint project to build resilient communities in Ethiopia.
According to the document sent from Ethiopian Embassy in Ireland, UCD and WSU entered into a partnership program with education and research as the critical ingredients to build resilient communities in Ethiopia through recognizing the urgent need to transform the capacity of exposed communities. The duration of the project is four years, from January 2018- January 2022.
The methodological approach of The Building Resilience Through Education (BRTE) is founded on three inter-related components: The first component is principled research partnership. Experience has shown that innovation-oriented research conducted by institutions with vastly different capacities must be guided by explicit guiding principles to be both effective and sustainable. Such partnerships need to be principled to be effective to the extent that research problems and research methodologies are appropriately framed and led by the institution from the global South. Thus, the principles underlying the consortium are respect, commitment to equality, transparency and reciprocity.
The second strand of BRTE’s methodological approach is its commitment to a Trans-disciplinary approach that draws on disparate knowledge into service to a society facing recurrent crises. Traditionally, research partnerships between institutions from the North and South have been confined to disciplines or, less frequently, address a limited number of issues from an inter-disciplinary perspective. This has led to a somewhat fragmented approach to addressing challenges in the SNNPR in which research institutions often have an important outreach mandate.
By adopting a whole-of-university approach that incorporates the arts and humanities as well as the natural sciences and engineering in addition to the social sciences, a holistic approach to addressing societal challenges by the research institution in the global South is enabled.
The third key feature of BRTE’s methodological approach is its explicit orientation towards research and innovation outcomes that lead to transformative resilience. In undertaking a Trans-disciplinary approach that is rooted in addressing societal challenges identified and driven by WSU, the consortium’s methodological approach can be oriented towards achieving transformative resilience.
A ‘Conference of PhD studies’ was hosted last month in UCD Ireland to discuss on the progress of the project. Accordingly, H.E. Ambassador Eshetu Dessie Ambassador of Ethiopia for Ireland gave a speech about the Ethio-Irish partnership. He mentioned about the diplomacy relation between Irish and Ethiopia and that of their universities. He then praised the collaboration between UCD and WSU as an exemplary program.
And also he presented about the overview of Ethiopia, tourist attraction sites, Ethiopia’s unique features and stories, investment opportunities, incentives to invest in Ethiopia, and witnesses from multinational companies who have already invested in Ethiopia Eshetu further emphasized that the success of this project promotes new way of partnership between local and international universities and can be used as a launching pad to scale up similar project into other universities of the country. Side to the conference, 14 Ethiopian PhD candidates were also presented their research in front of Vice presidents of the two universities and other distinguished guests in UCD.
Through engagement between UCD, IT Carlow and Wolaita Sodo University, fourteen exciting PhD projects have been developed that are aimed at enhancing capacities within the Wolaita region of southern Ethiopia. The projects span areas as diverse as small business development, female entrepreneurship, public health, veterinary medicine, nutrition, artificial intelligence, childhood education, climate change adaptation, water resource utilization, communication, and cultural heritage. Each project has been aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
On the occasion both universities’ vice deans with Associate Professor Pat Gibbons, principal investigator of the project, have encouraged that this project has its origins in an ex-post impact evaluation of Concern World wide’s 25-year engagement in Wolaita, Ethiopia. As a result the evaluation found that, despite significant improvements in communities’ capacities to both absorb the effects of recurring disasters and to adapt their livelihoods based on experience of recent disasters, they remain extremely vulnerable to their natural and environmental context.
Pat Gibbons also explained the progress of the project. He presented achievements registered in building critical infrastructure in Wolaita Sodo University and the progress made towards work-package.
Approached by The Ethiopian Herald, Ato Dejen Kuma, project manager BRTE and member of the managerial team of WSU says, the two universities joint relation has brought a great opportunity for the university community and for the infrastructural development. Especially library, educational buildings, ICT department and class and innovation are the focus point of infrastructural development for the university.
More over the project has a platform to give PhD programs for lecturers. Yet what make differ for this program is the candidates will graduated from the two university at ones. They will take the final courses here in Ethiopia despite they are also supposed to take courses at UCD as the relation was made based on mutual benefit and interest.
Therefore this will increase a tendency of Ethiopian students to serve their community. And it will also help to avoid power imbalance of international universities “Cognizant of the fact that all the PhD candidates have conducted their research on the issues that can bring a solution for the society, the two universities’ relation is vital for the country Ethiopia.” Dejen added.
The Ethiopian Herald, June 15/2019
BY HIZKEL HAILU
