A team of UConn researchers, collaborating with five Ethiopian universities and Alabama A&M University, has been selected to receive significant funding from USAID through the Africa-U.S. Higher Education Initiative to help build Ethiopia’s educational capacity to effectively manage its water resources.
The project is led by UConn engineering professors Michael Accorsi and Mekonnen Gebremichael, together with colleagues at the co-lead institution in Ethiopia, Addis Abba University.
The team was one of just 11 chosen nationally for research projects involving collaborations with various African countries. Each project will receive about $1.1 million during the first two years.
The aim of the UConn-led project is to help Ethiopian universities increase their capacity to educate their students and conduct research and outreach that will contribute to solving the water management and distribution challenges that plague their country. A centerpiece of the project is the establishment of an Ethiopian Institute of Water Resources.
“We are deeply honored by the confidence USAID/HED has placed in this project, which promises to help Ethiopia address an environmental and socio-economic problem of enormous proportion,” says UConn provost Peter Nicholls. “UConn is committed to improving the lives of citizens across the globe. This project exemplifies the highest application of our abilities as an educational institution.”
In addition to Accorsi and Gebremichael, the researchers include civil and environmental engineering faculty members Guiling Wang, Emmanouil Anagnostou, and Amvrossios Bagtzoglou; Farhed Shah of agricultural and resource economics; and geography professors Jeffrey Osleeb and Carol Atkinson-Palombo. Besides UConn, the project includes partners from Alabama A&M University, along with five Ethiopian universities: co-lead Addis Ababa University, Arba Minch University, Bahir Dar University, Hawassa University, and Mekelle University.
Despite abundant water reserves fed by nine river basins – including the Nile River in the northwest – across Ethiopia, half of the nation’s estimated 80 million residents walk up to 2.5 miles daily to collect water. More than 70 percent of the population lacks access to safe drinking water; agriculture is primarily rain-fed, causing food insecurity, while less than 5 percent of the nation’s potential irrigable land is under irrigation; only 2 percent of the nation’s potential hydropower is utilized; and water-related diseases such as malaria are major public health problems.
USAID is providing up to $1.1 million each to 11 projects during the first two years, in support of activities that address issues including food security and agriculture, energy, health care, education, and water in Africa. The funding comes through Higher Education for Development, which currently manages grants for the Africa-U.S. Higher Education Initiative.
The Africa-U.S. Higher Education Initiative was established by the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities to increase teaching, problem solving, and administrative capacity in African institutions.
It is expected the partnerships will continue well beyond the initial funding period, and will enhance the resources of U.S. universities while enabling African universities to capitalize on their on-the-ground knowledge, proximity to the challenges, and internal capacity to better address these challenges.
