This report is an end-review of an institutional cooperation programme between two Ethiopian universities and the Norwegian University of Life Sciences. The development objective of the programme is to enhance the contribution of higher education institutions towards national policy of poverty reduction. It also aims at increasing agricultural productivity by improving the quality of education and research.
Considering that the programme has accomplished almost all planned activities, the paper accordingly presents a number of recommendations. Some of them are as follows:
- emphasizing multidisciplinary, team and joint research approaches;
- dissemination of research findings;
- support to female students, gender balance and gender sensitivity;
- programme sustainability, and including the programme's impacts in the annual plans of the two Ethiopian universities;
- experience sharing between the two Ethiopian universities;
- student exchange with the Norwegian university;
- reducing bureaucratic chain;
- mentoring and guiding young researchers;
- incentive for publishing research, and grant writing;
- library support;
- solving the problem of water and sanitation.
Furthermore, regarding the issue of gender in particular, the paper recommends:
- short term gender training of academic and administrative staff;
- collection of sex disaggregated data at all levels of administration as well as programmes;
- implementation of proactive measures to increase the number of female staff;
- systems to secure and monitor gender sensitivity in research.
The paper lastly finds that the programme has strengthened the research capacity of the two Ethiopian universities, and the support provided to the administration has enabled them to provide better services. However, the paper indicates that the procurement service has to be computerised to further improve the service.