Debre Markos University (DMU) has launched partnership with two universities in Austria. These are University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU) and Technical University of Vienna (TUW). These three universities, including Bahir Dar University, have signed intent letter to work together in areas of academics. The three mandates of academics, i.e., teaching-learning, research and community service are the main focus areas for the project of partners. Based on the need assessment study conducted, the problematic areas are identified and the priority focus areas are outlined. Accordingly, the partners have planned and prepared a project in one of the priority areas of the country which is strengthening land administration system.

In Ethiopia, a number of policy and strategic steps have been made both by the Federal State and Regional Governments for poverty reduction and sustainable development. The establishment of a modern land administration system (LAS) is one of the main issues, since LAS addresses the core components of sustainability (economic, social, environmental, and good governance). A proper administration of the crucial resource, Land, is essential for economic growth, social stability, environmental protection, equality, and good governance. Establishing an overarching and progressive land administration system in the country is of top priority for the federal and regional governments of Ethiopia. Accordingly, Ethiopia has been launching modern land administration practices in almost all regions of the country. The land administrations practices are designed to be executed effectively both in rural and urban areas but lack of professionals towards the discipline is becoming a critical challenge.

Cognizant of this fact, the partner institutions have planned to fill the gap by opening the Institute of Land Administration at Debre Markos University (ILA/DMU). Accordingly, a project is prepared and submitted to one of the Austrian funding agencies focused on Academic Partnership which is “Austrian Partnership Programme in Higher Education and Research for Development (APPEAR)”.  The title of the project is “Implementation of Academic Land Administration Education in Ethiopia for Supporting Sustainable Development (EduLAND2)”. Competing on the academic partnership open call of APPEAR, our project is selected and the project which is for four years has launched implementation of the project activities conducting its kick-off meeting since March 2016.

Multifunctional institute website is prepared by the support of the project fund in the second year of the project. It is great pleasure for us when we start communicating the main project activities in the institute website.

Sayeh Kassaw Agegnehu (PhD)