A team from the University of Connecticut is spearheading a platoon of American and African engineering instructors and researchers destined for Ethiopia to help that North African nation manage its water resources.
UConn engineering professors Michael Accorsi and Mekonnen Gebremichael are leading the 11 teams of researchers and students chosen for the two-year project funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and collaborating with the Africa-U.S. Higher Education Initiative.
UConn is collaborating with Alabama A&M University, Ethiopia’s Addis Abbaba University and five other African universities.
Also serving on the UConn team are civil and environmental engineering faculty members Guiling Wang, Emmanouil Anagnostou and Amvrossios Bagtzoglou; Farhed Shah of agricultural and resource economics; and geography professors Jeffrey Osleeb and Carol Atkinson-Palombo.
Their task is to build Ethiopia’s educational capacity to effectively manage its water resources.
Despite abundant water reserves fed by nine river basins – including the Nile River in the northwest – across Ethiopia, half of the nation’s estimated 80 million residents walk up to 2.5 miles daily to collect water, authorities say.
More than 70 percent of the population lack access to safe drinking water; agriculture is primarily rain-fed, causing food insecurity, while less than 5 percent of the nation’s potential irrigable land is under irrigation.
USAID is providing up to $1.1 million to each of the 11 projects during the initial two years.
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