Ethiopia became a partner country to the B-EPICC project in 2022. This workshop was conceived as a showcase of the project’s work with partners in Ethiopia.
In the opening remarks, the German Ambassador to Ethiopia, Mr Stephan Auer, highlighted the importance of international collaboration to strengthen resilience against climate change. The team from PIK, together with in-country partners, introduced its scientific capabilities and priorities in the areas of monsoon and El Niño forecasting, agriculture, water and hydrology, forests and biodiversity, as well as migration. Furthermore, capacity building and knowledge transfer activities of the project were presented, including the web portal ClimateImpactsOnline.
On Day 2, special attention was paid to the IOM-PIK Risk Assessment report “Assessing the Evidence”. The main collaborators, Dr Alec Thornton from the B-EPICC project and Dr Diogo Serraglio from the HABITABLE project, provided insights into the development of the report and its topics were discussed in smaller groups which included participants from the International Organization for Migration Ethiopia and Ethiopian Forest Development, amongst others.
Day 3 of the workshop focused on agriculture. Amongst others, Dr Teferie Demissie (International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), AICCRA and NORCE) demonstrated the impact of climate change on livestock in East Africa and Mr Endalew Assefa Abera (Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Institute (EIAR), Debre Zeit Agricultural Research Center (DZARC) spoke about simulating the effect of crop management strategies under a changing climate in Ethiopia. This day was rounded off with a visit to the Debre Zeit Agricultural Research Center (DZARC) in Bishoftu, where Director Dr Dagne Mojo and his team warmly welcomed the participants. The group had the chance to visit the National Tef Research Programm and learned about livestock research in the Center’s cowsheds. The day provided valuable insights into local research capabilities in agricultural research.
All in all, the goal of arriving at, and advancing, a joint research and collaboration agenda to support the aims of the project and its collaborators in the coming months was achieved. We would like to warmly thank all participants for generously exchanging knowledge, discussing and collaborating!
