Japanese Ambassador to Ethiopia visits Hawassa University.
Her excellency Ms. Ito Takako, Japanese Ambassador to Ethiopia, visits Hawassa University with the aim of identifying new areas of collaboration and partnership and strengthening those already established.
Dr. Emebet Bekele, Director General at the Office of External Relation and Communication, has presented an overview of Hawassa university to the visiting guests so that they can pinpoint the capacities and potentials of the university for partnership.
During her meeting with the president and other top leaders of Hawassa University, Ms. Ito Takako said that her country, Japan, is not endowed with natural resources like Ethiopia, but it shares the great experiences of human resource development to alleviate poverty and ensure national development to countries striving for development. Hence, she said, “It is important to know the potential areas of collaboration and excellence in addition to strengthening the ones already established before.
Dr. Ayano Berasso, president of Hawassa University, on his part explained that agriculture is one of the top priority areas of research as HU is one of the two pioneering universities in the country to have agricultural education and research as their foundations. Following the differentiation of HU as one of the 8 research universities in Ethiopia, Dr. Ayano pointed out that agriculture remains among the top priority areas with well-established centers of excellence at the College of Agriculture to support those efforts. He also remarked the serious problems of soil acidity that has been challenging farmers at the highlands of Sidama Regional State where HU researchers have been conducting different researches to overcome the problem. He added that the Japanese experience in tackling the challenges of soil acidity to increase agricultural productivity will be of paramount significance if included in future collaborations.
The Vice president for research and Technology transfer, Dr. Tafesse Matewos, and Chief Executive Director of the College of Medicine and Health Sciences, Dr. Anteneh Gadissa, explained numerous potential areas of collaboration with Japanese universities and Hawassa University by citing the previous experiences with two Japanese universities on research, capacity building and community services. Dr. Tafesse mentioned the different centers of excellence at the university whereas Dr. Anteneh elaborated on critical areas of human health such as cancer care and emergency treatments among others.
Finally, her Excellency Ms Ito said that human security is one of the top concerns in Japan and they are eager to collaborate with institutions like HU in line with the five years’ and ten years’ strategic development plans of the Ethiopian Federal Government.
