A high-level team of officials led by the Deputy Director General of the Authority for Civil Society Organizations (ACSO), Ato Fasikaw Molla, paid an official visit to the Forum for Social Studies (FSS) headquarters on Monday, 16 April, 2026. The delegation was warmly welcomed by FSS Executive Director, Dr. Yeraswork Admassie, who introduced the team with FSS staff and guided the team through the newly constructed two story office building.

During the visit, Dr. Yeraswork provided an overview of FSS’s institutional journey and achievements, emphasizing its extensive policy-related research, publications, and public dialogue initiatives carried out over the past 28 years since its establishment in 1998. He also highlighted the organization’s income generating activities (IGA), including office spaces rented in accordance with Directive to provide for Income Generating Activities by Charities and Societies (No. 7/2011) which allows CSOs to establish IGAs to support program financing.

In the course of his discussion with the team, Dr. Yeraswork raised his organization’s chief concern regarding the challenge it faces in utilizing IGA-generated funds. He noted that, FSS is not free in making use of the pure profit that its IGA unit hands over to it after covering all of its costs and paying a 45 percent income tax to the Government. It is legally required to make use of funds generated in such a way for covering the program costs of activities that are in line with its organizational aims, and none of the associated administrative and sustainability-related costs.

Acknowledging the broader implications of constraints related to income generation, Deputy Director General Ato Fasikaw recommended that local CSOs engaged in income-generating activities ought to discuss the issue and jointly come up with a constructive recommendation to the Authority.

The visit was concluded with the ACSO delegation expressing its appreciation for FSS’s longstanding contribution to the nation as a center of policy research and public dialogue forum, and its gratitude to FSS for hosting the visit.