Mission

The mission of EIWR is to provide outstanding higher education programs, conduct internationally recognized research and perform high-impact community outreach to address Ethiopian development challenges in all aspects of Sustainable Development & Management of Water Resources.  We will offer an integrated water resources curriculum that provides strong interdisciplinary training to our M.Sc. and PhD students. Our faculty and students will conduct pioneering research that effectively addresses water resources issues at the local, national, regional and global scales. Our faculty and students will actively participate in outreach activities that unite our educational and research missions with national priorities and needs and engage external stakeholders and the private sector.

Who We Are

Almost all major development problems in Ethiopia are water-related: food insecurity, low economic development, recurrent droughts, disastrous floods, poor health conditions, and low energy production.  The root cause of these problems is not the lack of adequate water resources, as Ethiopia has an abundance of water, but rather the limited development of this country’s most important resource.  This is mainly due to the lack of institutional capacity for managing this precious resource and shortage of professionals trained in water resource management.

In order to develop and manage these existing water resources in a sustainable manner, expertise and research is needed in water access, water quality, water demand and sector and impact of water resource project on health and the environment.  Sustainable water resources development and management requires new knowledge and applications developed through higher education, research and outreach.  Achieving this goal will require new technologies for data collection, a highly trained workforce and institutionalized higher education and research in sustainable water resources which are currently lacking in Ethiopia and elsewhere in Africa.

How We Began

The Ethiopian Institute of Water Resources (EIWR) was established under the Africa-U.S. Higher Education initiative to coordinate research, funded by a grant from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), to coordinate research, education and outreach activities among partnering universities, including Addis Ababa University, the University of Connecticut, Arba-Minch University, Bahir Dar University, Hawassa University and Mekelle University in Ethiopia.  We seek to engage additional universities, governmental and non-governmental organizations and the private sector to work with us towards accomplishing our goals.