The Norwegian Program for Capacity Development in Higher Education and Research for Development (NORHEDII) Project Advisor and Coordinators have visited the Africa Center of Excellence for Water Management (ACEWM) from October 31st, 2022 to November 3, 2023. The purpose of the visit was to oversee and evaluate the progress of NORHEDII project implementation activities.

The Africa Center of Excellence for Water Management (ACEWM) and The Arctic University of Norway (UiT) have signed a project Partnership Agreement titled the Urban- Suburban Nexus Towards One Health Approach Program on October 01, 2021 which is financed by NORAD under the NORHEDII. The objective of NORHEDII is to support higher education teaching and research.

The project will be financially supported by NORAD for the period of 2021-2026. The visiting team consists of Mr. Haakon Fottland, Senior Advisor for International Cooperation Section at UiT, Dr Fasil Ejigu, The Project Coordinator at UiT, and Mr. Helge Lagard, Program Coordinator at UiT.

The project brings together a multi-disciplinary consortium from partner institutions to address the gaps in the training of One Health professionals at AAU and Malawi University of Science and Technology (MUST) as South partners and the UiT and other Norwegian Institutions as North Partners. The project involves the development of evidence-based One Health curricula at MSc. and PhD levels at AAU and MUST. The One Health research will be implemented in the urban and suburban area of Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) and Blantyre (Malawi) – to realize One Health approach through urban-suburban governance system in a rapidly urbanized Sub-Saharan-African countries. Scholarships will be available for students, staffs and students mobility between partner’s institutes will offer learning in an environment other than their own institute to broaden their vision. The novel training program will serve as a model for adaptation and up scaling to other countries in the region.

During their visit NORHEADII project team discussed with ACEWM’s Director, academic and management staff about implementations of technical, financial and procurement progresses of the project. Particularly, NORHEDII project team had conducted fruitful discussion with Director for Graduate Program of AAU, Prof. Hagos Ashenafi on the progress of Joint One Health Curriculum approval by the AAU. Moreover, the team had visited ACEWM’S water research and teaching laboratories, microbiological laboratory, High-Tec Smart lecture rooms, seminar auditoriums and computer laboratories.

The team had also the opportunity to travel to agricultural farms employing polluted rivers in Addis Ababa City and visited the College of Veterinary Medicine and Agriculture of Addis Ababa University based in Bishoftu.