College of Law and Governance is one of the lively colleges’ of Hawassa University. The College is located at the vibrant city of Hawassa Main Campus and aspires to be one of the most preferred Colleges nationally, competitive in Africa and renowned in the World. It has been restructured and opened in 2011 by comprising the former Faculty of Law, and Governance and Developmental Studies, which were separately organized in different faculties. Currently, in addition to these two Schools, there are on-going attempts to establish Centre for Land and Environment Research, and Centre for Indigenous Studies.
The school of Law is one of the prominent public law schools in Ethiopia. Following the decision of the Ministry of Education to expand higher education program, the School was established in 2002. The School started its work by admitting advanced diploma students in the 2002/03 academic year. In the 2003/04 academic year, it launched LLB degree program. Since then, there has been a steady stream of graduates every year. In the same academic year, the School has launched the Continuing and Distance Education Program in LLB Degree. After two batches, the advanced diploma program was phased out. The School has also offered an extensive summer–in-service program. Since 2012, the school has broadened its program in postgraduate level by opening a new LLM program on commercial law. Following a need assessment and a series international conference in partnership with different institution in Africa and Europe, the School has launched a new LLM program on Environment and Land Law in September 2015. By 2019, LLM in Criminal Justice was launched. Currently, the school is teaching over 1000 students in the regular, weekend and summer programs.
The School of Governance and Development Studies was established in 2006 with the core objectives of preparing students for careers in the public, civic and private sectors. It has launched its undergraduate program in 2007 and its post-Graduate program in 2009. The school is pioneer in instituting governance and development studies in public higher institutions of Ethiopia. Currently, it offers B.A in Governance and Development Studies (Regular) and Civics and Ethical Education (summer) and BED (Regular) and M.A in Governance and Development (Regular and Weekend), Development management (Regular and Weekend), International Relations and Diplomacy (Regular and Weekend), Civics and Ethics Studies (Summer) and Peace and conflict Studies (Regular and Weekend), and Public Management and Policy Development both in weekend and regular. In collaboration with the IPDR, the school has launched PhD in Policy and Development Studies. By 2017, School of GaDS launched BA in Governance and Development Studies as special summer program by enrolling selected Kebele level managers from different rural Woredas of the SNNPRS.
Since its operation, the School of Governance and Development Studies graduated over tens of thousands students in all programs.
By the end of 2019, the CLG has 90 academic staff and 12 administrative and technical staffs. Among the academic, 72 of them are on duty and 13 are on study leave. By 2019/20, the college has 1881 regular and CEP undergraduate students; and 439 postgraduate regular and CEP students.