Public lecture on International Water Governance at Hawassa University.
College of Social Sciences & Humanities at Hawassa University host a public lecture on "International Water Use, Governance, Protection & Conservation" delivered by Dr. Yacob Arsano, an Associate Professor of Political science & International Relations, Addis Ababa University.
Dr. Ing. Fisiha Getachew, Vice President for Academic Affairs at HU, officially welcomed the speaker and attendants. He underlined the importance of having such public lectures on cross-cutting issues as they're essential platforms for intellectual discourses. He said that water resource has become a source of conflict because of increasing number of world population, but can be managed through multilateral discussions and agreements.
Dr. Zeleke Arficho, Dean of CSSH, also welcomed all where he explained the goals of having the public lecture at the university as it boosts a better understanding of this very critical issue among the university community since hydro politics of the Nile Basin and the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam/GERD/ is a global issue of the era. In addition, Dr. Zeleke presented Dr. Yacob Arsano's professional profile and experience as an international scholar and a prolific speaker on hydro-politics, water governance, geopolitics and regional security issues in Northeastern Africa and the Middle East. Dr. Yacob is also a Vice Chairperson for transboundary waters at the Ministry of Water Resources and Energy, and member of national panel of experts on the GERD.
In his lecture, Dr.Yacob underlined the fact that Ethiopia has no intension of harming any country or nation in building the GERD, but firmly believes in the importance of sharing the multifaceted benefits of the project. He underscored that the GERD was built based on environmental, legal, security and institutional imperatives permitted by international laws, rules and regulations on natural resources management that benefit all countries in its vicinity based on their respective interests.
After the lecture, there was a Q&A session chaired by Dr. Tafese Matewos, Vice president for Research & Technology Transfer at HU. A wide range of questions were raised by attendants followed by brief discussions and insightfull reflections from the speaker.
