(August 25, 2023, Adama) Ethiopian Cities Association’s (ECA) 2015 E.C. fiscal year performance report and 2016 E.C. fiscal year plan were presented to its Executive Board of and discussed and approved today at Adama city.
During the discussion, the 2016 budget of ECA is approved to be 40,506,251.59 Birr (Forty Million Five Hundred Six Thousand Two Hundred Fifty One Birr and fifty Nine cents).
In this discussion, Honorable Ato Alemayehu Assefa, Bishoftu city mayor, chaired the meeting and the Executive Board mentioned that ECA’s work performance in 2015 E.C. was mostly successful and accordingly directed that ECA should play its part in the next fiscal year to continue the sucessful works, that has been accomplished last year on the urban development sector, more than ever.
In particular, it was discussed that one of ECA’s best performance, that is taking member city mayors within the country and various foreign countries to visit and broaden their knowledge and experience in the field of urban development should be continued enormously.
(August 22, 2023, Addis Ababa) Ethiopian Cities Association (ECA) and Forum for Social Studies (FSS) signed Memorandum of Understanding today at the FSS’s office to work together on various issues.
The bilateral agreement was signed by the Director General of ECA, Mr. Andualem Tenaw and Forum for Social Studies Executive Director, Dr. Yeraswereq Admasie.
According to the memorandum of understanding, both institutions have agreed to work together for sharining knowledge and expertise on urban governance, urban planning and sustainable development practices.
In particular, it was stated at the signing ceremony that they agreed to hold various workshops, seminars and trainings to build the capacity of city leaders, policy makers and researchers.
It is suggested that the signed Memorandum of Understanding between Ethiopian Cities Association (ECA) and Forum for Social Studies (FSS), which has been known for its policy consultation and various social research activities for the past 25 years, will be helpful for the development of the urban development sector and the efforts to create qualified leadership.
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(July 10, 2023, Addis Ababa) Ethiopian Cities Association (ECA) and the Addis Ababa City Administration Mayor’s Office, Internal and External Relations Directorate signed a memorandum of understanding regarding on sister cities twinning and to compile any domestic and foreign experiences exchange in the field of urban development today here in Addis at the hall of the mayor’s office.
This memorandum of understanding was signed by the General Director of ECA, Ato Andualem Tenaw, and the Director of the Internal and External Relations Directorate of the Mayor’s Office, W/ro Metti Tamrat.
At the signing ceremony, W/ro Metti, announced that Addis Ababa, which is ranked third among the cities that are the seat of diplomats in the world, has a desire to connect and grow together with the cities in the country and abroad, but outstanding works have not been done in this regard.
However, she said that making an agreement with ECA that has a lot of experience in promoting new concepts in the field of urban development and sister twinning will solve our many challenges.
The General Director of ECA, Ato Andualem Tenaw, on his part said that ECA is ready and happy to work in collaboration with the Addis Ababa city administration in any urban development works and sister city twinning.
Two weeks before (from May 31- June 3, 2023) Ethiopian Cities Association (ECA) in collaboration with the Ministry of Urban and Infrastructure were organized a four-day training workshop in Mekelle city so as to resume public services that had been interrupted in the cities of Tigray Region.
Accordingly Regional, Zonal and City leaders and Mayors, who are recently appointed by the Interim Administration of Tigray Region, as well as experts, were participated in this sensitizing training workshop.
Besides at the opening ceremony of this sensitizing training workshop, the Honorable Mrs. Almaz Gebre Tsadiq, Head of the Tigray Region Interim Administration, Urban and Construction Office, and the Head of the Region’s Infrastructure Sector, the Honorable Mrs. Alem Tsegai, Honorable Mr. Fenta Dejen, State Minister of the Ministry of Urban and Infrastructure, and as well as Ethiopian Cities Association General Director, Mr. Andualem Tenaw, were attended.
In her speech as the guest of honor, Mrs. Alem Tsegai said that the infrastructure of most of the cities of Tigray had been destroyed during the 3-year war. She said that the leadership and the people should come out of in this psychological damage and try to take advantage of the peace that has been achieved to bring our cities to a better level.
The other guest of honor was Mrs. Almaz G/Tzadiq who said in her speech that we are fortunate to be able to discuss urban development agendas after that terrible war. The Pretoria’s peace agreement has made a big contribution for putting aside our differences and agreeing to discuss on various urban development agendas.
The State Minister, Honorable Mr. Fenta Dejen, who gave the opening speech on the day, said that this motivational training workshop is one of the beginnings of the elimination of the terrible war that happened in the country for the past three years and led us to discuss on our urban development agendas. Therefore, he announced that the ministry will help the cities of Tigray Region to resume their work.
The Director General of the Ethiopian Cities Association, Mr. Andualem Tenaw, while speaking about the general aspect of ECA, said that he was happy to have organized the workshop in cooperation with the ministry in Mekele City and to meet with the mayors of the cities that were members of the Association before the war. He also said that he is ready to work with non-member cities in order to have them the new member cities of ECA.
He promised that ECA will provide the necessary assistance to make the cities of Tigray region beautiful and clean and convenient for the residents. In addition he emphasized that ECA is always with cities to support them in resuming the municipal provisions service.
More than 300 regional, zonal, and city leaders and experts attended the four-day training workshop, and 15 of them were mayors from different cities of Tigray region and in this valuable event, documents were presented and discussed on the nature and Application of Municipal Service Standards, Urban Land Management Procedures, City Plan Preparation and Implementation Procedures and similar agendas.
As can be understood from the comments of the participants, they recalled that the war was terrible and caused extensive damage to people and property. They said that the peace agreement that was made allowed them to breathe the air of peace and that the training workshop helped them a lot to restart the closed public services and brought them out of their psychological trauma.