The Department of Public Administration and Development Management of the AAU hosted the first international conference on “New Agendas in Governance and Policy for Sustainable Development” on February 21, 2018 at Eshetu Chole Hall of the College of Business and Economics (CBE).

Along with AAU’s department, the Institute for Poverty Alleviation and International Development, the BK21 Plus Program at Yonasei University and the African Institute of Governance and Development at Civil Service University co-organized the conference.

The conference set out to engage experts, practitioners, policy makers, politicians, academia and all stakeholders of the international development community in the region to advance, enhance, and establish new agenda in governance and sustainable development.

Governance, poverty and social inclusion, health and sanitation, environmental protection, energy, agricultural productivity, food security, economic development and gender and development were top agendas of the conference.

The guest of honor, Deputy Commissioner with the rank of State Minister of the National Planning Commission, Getachew Adem noted that Ethiopia has taken targeted policy interventions to ensure the equitable distribution of the benefits of development among the society.

“Aggressive investment in infrastructure and human resource development has created a conducive environment for enhancing growth and reducing poverty,” said the guest o honor.

“Widening the democratic platform and fostering good governance through enhancing the implementation capacity of the public sector and mobilizing public participation is also articulated as one of the pillar strategies of the 2^nd GTP,” Getachew Adem added.

In his presentation entitled: “challenges of governance in the horn of Africa: youth unemployment, structural violence and migration,” Getachew Zeru (Ph.D.) pointed out that inspite of the remarkable economic growth that most countries of the Horn achieved, the escalation of youth unemployment is a critical socio-economic and political problem for them and Africa in general.

Scholars from different countries, government officials and experts attended the conference.