FIRST DIALOGUE HELD ON ‘GENERAL ASSESSMENT OF LAND TENURE IN ETHIOPIA’

ADDIS ABEBA – Forum for Social Studies (FSS), in collaboration with the Open Society Initiative for Eastern Africa (OSIEA), launched a new public dialogue project under the main theme of ‘Land and Food Security in Ethiopia’, on Thursday December 26, 2019 at Azeman Hotel.
The dialogue series involves organizing six dialogue events on six specific topics at national level to be held in Addis Ababa, and another three at three selected regional states, namely, Oromia, Tigray and Amhara regional states.
Those dialogue events to be held in Addis Ababa will be conducted roughly every three weeks over a period between December, 2019 and March 2020, while the regional ones which will deal with regional concerns surrounding the issue of land and food security will be held in between the stated period..
Launching the project, FSS’ Executive Director, Dr. Yeraswork Admassie, on behalf of FSS and OSIEA, which financed the project, welcomed all for coming to attend this important event in response to FSS invitation?
The Director noted that as Ethiopia was currently under a democratic reform, and that national elections will be held in the near future, it was necessary to create a platform to deliberate on issues of concern such as land and food security in Ethiopia in that context. .
He said that, to that effect, the project has identified six topics around the main theme at national level and three at regional level to create the platform for discussion and deliberation among the relevant stakeholders. He thanked OSIEA for financing FSS to conduct this dialogue project on a very crucial and timely issue.
Finally he said that the results of the nine dialogue events to be held in this project altogether, will be disseminated through weekly radio programs on FANA Broadcasting Corporate, and videos will be uploaded to ensure that the presentations, the discussions are shared to the public.
“FSS has established an excellent track record of conducting policy dialogues on various issues of national concern through which the organization not only provides a platform for stakeholders to debate and discuss, but also generate evidence‐based policy recommendations to policy makers, and enhance public participation in the policy making and implementation process in the country,” Dr Yeraswork noted.
With that, the director wished a fruitful discussion and declared the public dialogue project officially launched, the event proceeded to the first dialogue event on the topic of the day.
Then, Ato Dessalegn Rahmato, a senior research fellow at FSS presented a discussion paper on the first topic of the series specifically dealing with: Land Tenure in Ethiopia: A General Assessment.
In the discussion session that ensued, participants commented to enrich the discussion paper, reflected on the issues and asked many questions to which Ato Desalegn responded.
The event brought together around 70 individuals drawn from political parties, government offices, academic institutions, civil society organizations, and the media. The event was given considerable coverage by the mainstream media 9 both State and Private).