Sida Project Coordination Office

2018/2019 Achievements

  • In the process, since the beginning of May 2019, the two controllers, one assistant report writer and one secretary, making the total number of staff of SPCO seven were employed.
  • In this same 2018/19 first project period, the SPCO was invited by Sida/Stockholm to attend the Sida Science Day from 19 May /2019 to 29 May/2019 in which personnel related to the SPCO and the AAU-Sida projects were planned to travel to Sweden. Namely,
  1. Professor Brook Lemma, Coordinator of AAU-Sida Projects
  2. MastewalMoges, Assistant Coordinator
  3. BelaynewMengistu, Chief Accountant from AAU Finance Office who handles  transactions of Sida supported projects
  4. MengeshaMamo, Principal Investigator of the Electric Power and Control Management PhD Program which was selected to represent all the projects at AAU as it is exemplarily formulated with the inclusion of a private company from Sweden (ABB) and a public institution from Ethiopia (The Ethiopian Electric and Power Authority) in its academic programs in addition to AAU, KTH and Chalmers Universities.
  5. The team of the above trip did not only participate at the Sida Science Day, but according to the discussion made with Dr. Alexander Sellerholm from the embassy, it wanted to optimize on this travel opportunity and made special trips to travel to AAU Swedish partner institutions to conclude defined tasks as indicated briefly below. These are:-
  • Gothenburg University (GU) Department of Pedagogy that supports the Sida supported International and Comparative Education PhD program. The team visited the overall GU Public Relations Office where it was briefed on the internal and national interventions GU does and how the new Sida supported projects in collaborations with GU could be added to the portfolio of the office to increase the international visibility of AAU and GU.
  • ABB at Ludvika was visited with complete route of the company facilities with prior briefings on the involvement of the Swedish two universities in the presence of Professor LisbithS?derlingand ProfessorStanislaw Gubanski. After the company visit one AAU PhD candidate who was at ABB presented a seminar on his work at ABB and discussions were made on how he obtains support from the SPCO, AAU and other Ethiopian universities where he conducts his research upon returning home.
  • The International Science Program (ISP) at Uppsala University was visited where how the work at AAU and in Swedish partner universities could be interfaced and how the reporting formats could be made similar to make them friendly and effective for Sida assessment for effectiveness.
  • As per the project cycle captured in the project proposal submitted at the signing of the AAU-Sida 2018-2023 agreement and the articles captured in the same agreement, AAU has made two planning meetings with Swedish partners which were both chaired by Dr. Alexander Sellerholm and facilitated by Professor Brook lemma and the SPCO staff. These meetings proved to be highly useful in bringing all persons involved in the management, coordination and implementation of the activities of the projects both in Ethiopia and Sweden. In general, these included professors leading the projects (at AAU and in Sweden), embassy representatives, finance and procurement personals, college deans that host the projects, and AAU senior management officers (AAU President and Vice Presidents). These meetings were held at Getfam Hotel from 07/Nov 2018 to 08/Nov 2018 and at the Ghion Hotel from 07May/2019 to 08 May/2019 in Addis Ababa and at the Senate Hall of AAU.
  • AAU and Sida have made a general agreement to make a special celebration of the 40th anniversary of AAU-Sida collaborations in research, capacity building (human and upgrading AAU system to create enabling environment for PhD trainings) at a meeting held at the embassy in which longtime AAU-Sida projects, senior Ethiopian Professors who are beneficiaries of Sida support, other institutions such as Haramaya University and WondoGuenet College of Forestry and pervious embassy employees who were liaisonig between AAU and the embassy.

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