Germany supports African Union with additional €30m

The German Government on Thursday pledged an additional amount of €30 million in support of different programs of the African Union Commission (AUC). 

Focus areas of the funding are peace and security, infrastructure, agriculture, education and capacity building.

Part of the money will be used to scale up the pilot phase of the Trading for Peace Project of COMESA, which seeks to support small-scale trade in the Great Lakes Region and to foster peace-building.

During the agreement signing ceremony, Mr. Erastus Mwencha, Deputy Chairperson of the AU Commission, expressed appreciation to Germany for its continued support to the AU Commission.

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Officials from the Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) of Germany for their part expressed their government’s interest to assisting Africa strengthen its capacity to address security and developmental challenges in a more effective and sustainable way.

Germany extended 1.4 billion Euro support to the African Union over the past four years.

Hydro dam projects yielding competent Ethiopian engineers

Construction of electric generating dams in Ethiopia is simultaneously equipping domestic engineers with valuable expertise as it meets energy demand.
 

Recently a team of journalists gave a visit to Gibe III Dam where they learnt how enormous skill transfer is happening there.

Salini Costrutori, an Italian construction company, is leaving its marks on the domestic professionals as it runs its daily routines to successfully construct the Dam.

“Salini Costrutori is imparting a lot to Ethiopian engineers involved in such projects,” Engineer Kenzu Temam, project supervisor, told the reporters.

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“Believe me sooner Ethiopia will have the expertise to manage such complex construction projects with home-grown talent.”

Project Site Manager, Engineer Mebratu Teshome shared the view and hopes in the near future Ethiopia will be seeking no more foreign talents that take away its much needed hard currency.

Project Manager of Gibe III for Salini Costrutori, Engineer Eugene Zopis admired the unprecedented green energy development in the country over the last decade.

He said the contribution of the energy sector to the national growth has been mammoth. No doubt, he explained, such projects would eventually create domestic competence that can manage power projects like Gibe III and beyond.

Gibe III is achieved by 65 percent so far and will generate 1,870MW electric power when it is got done. Figures indicate that construction of the Dam would consume some 32 billion Birr.