FSS conducts a virtual dialogue event on Land and Food Security in Ethiopia

Forum for Social Studies (FSS), successfully organized a virtual dialogue event on the specific topic of Land and Food Security in Ethiopia on Tuesday, 22 September 2020.

Professor Degefa Tolossa, Professor of Geography and Developmental Studies at Addis Ababa University as well as Director General of Federalism and Special Support at the Ministry of Peace,presented a discussion paper on the topic, which was followed by an hour-long vibrant Q & A session moderated by Professor Bahru Zewde, Professor Emeritus of History at Addis Ababa University.

The dialogue event is one of the nine discussion forums that make up the year long dialogue and dissemination series project Land and Food Security in Ethiopia’s Transition to a Democratic Society financially supported by the Open Society Initiative for East Africa (OSIEA).

The dialogue and dissemination project involves organizing six national and three regional level dialogue events. By now, all of these nine planned dialogue events, save the one on the land and food security special concerns of the Amhara Regional State, which will also be conducted virtually at the end of October 2020, are successfully carried out.

Tuesday’s virtual event, which was conducted as a matter of necessity due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and with the technical support of the Civil Society Resource Center (CSRC), was the first webinar in FSS’s 22 years-long history of organizing public dialogue events.

Around 31 invited individuals from various sectors, including GOs, CSOs, donor agencies, higher educational Institutions and the media attended the virtual event, which was fairly covered by the local media. While the edited audio recordings of the event will be broadcasted as two-week half-hour programs by Radio Fana, the video recording of the virtual event will be uploaded on YouTube that is linked to the FSS website for wider dissemination.