In an exclusive interview with Capital, Dr. Rita Bissoonauth, UNESCO’s Representative to Ethiopia, outlined the organization’s extensive partnership with Ethiopia and the African continent. She emphasized UNESCO’s commitment to strengthening education, preserving cultural heritage, advancing sustainable development, and promoting gender equality. Dr. Bissoonauth detailed key initiatives ranging from educational reforms and digital transformation to safeguarding Ethiopia’s rich world heritage sites, highlighting UNESCO’s collaborative efforts with the Ethiopian government and local stakeholders to build resilient, inclusive, and prosperous communities. Excerpts;
Capital: Could you elaborate on UNESCO’s current priorities and projects in Ethiopia, particularly in the areas of education and cultural heritage?
Dr. Rita Bissoonauth: UNESCO is a specialized United Nations agency dedicated to strengthening our shared humanity through the promotion of education, science, culture, and communication. We set standards, produce tools and develop knowledge to create solutions to some of the greatest challenges of our time, and foster a world of greater equality and peace.
In Ethiopia, the UNESCO Liaison Office covers all the four sub-sectors of education: early education, primary and secondary education, including Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET), entrepreneurship and higher education. In addition, education deals with two cross cutting thematics: digital transformation and ecological transition. Overall, throughout our priority areas, gender is also our major marker while implementing our programmes and projects.
Capital: How is UNESCO supporting Ethiopia in its efforts to preserve and promote its rich cultural and archaeological sites?
Dr. Rita Bissoonauth: Ethiopia has the highest number of UNESCO world heritage sites (WHS) in Africa, with 13 UNESCO Tangible WHS, whilst also having significant number of intangible heritage and biosphere reserves.
As underlined in the UNESCO culture conventions, the responsibility of protecting and preserving cultural heritage is the prime responsibility of the state. However, UNESCO supports the effort of the government. Our office is supporting Ethiopia as follows:
- UNESCO supported the implementation of the culture conventions ratified by Ethiopia. For instance, UNESCO supports the efforts of the government in promoting world heritage sites by mobilizing the diplomatic community for a visit to world heritage sites, which are undertaken to Lalibela, Aksum, Tiya, Bale Mountains and very soon to Harrar.
- UNESCO supports capacity building program for the development and registration of Ethiopian Geo- Park sites by UNESCO. This year Ministry of Tourism supported registering two sites on Geo- Park List of UNESCO. We also worki closely with the National Library and Archive to promote and register literary heritage on the Memory of the World.
Capital: What initiatives has UNESCO recently implemented to strengthen education systems in Ethiopia?
Dr. Rita Bissoonauth: To better address the issues of unemployment of youth and offer decent work to young people, UNESCO Liaison has implemented two spotlight projects and worked closely with the Ministry of Labor and Skills and the Ministry of Education. The first project, namely Better Education for Africa Rise (BEAR). The Better Education for Africa’s Rise (BEAR) project is a joint initiative between UNESCO and the Republic of Korea to improve TVET system and the Ministry of Labor and Skills. BEAR Project aims to give young people in Africa including Ethiopia a better chance of accessing decent employment or of generating self-employment through improvements in the TVET systems of the beneficiary countries. In Ethiopia, the BEAR project was focused on two domains: Agro-processing and Digital Transformation of TVET. Starting in 2021, the BEAR project will end by December 2026. The second project is the China Fund in Trust initiative titled: Higher Technical Education in Africa for a Technical and Innovative Workforce. The CFIT III project responds to challenges of youth unemployment and skills mismatch by equipping youth with the skills needed for sustainable development. Implemented in Ethiopia from 2021 to 2025, through two beneficiaries’ institutions, Addis Ababa Science Technology University and Federal Technical Vocational Institute (FVTI) has reached thousand of students.
Regarding digital education, UNESCO Liaison Office has implemented this project with the Ministry of Education. The project is titled: “Technology enabled Open Schools System, TeOSS”. This UNESCO-Huawei Funds-in-Trust project aims to build technology-enabled crisis-resilient school systems that will connect school-based and home-based learning, to ensure the continuity and quality of learning no matter whether it is normal or crises situations. In Ethiopia, the project has been deployed within 24 schools in 10 regions with the donation of ICT equipment for the Ministry of Education and the Regional Education Bureaus.
Capital: Could you share insights on UNESCO’s involvement in promoting sustainable
development and gender equality in Ethiopia?
Dr. Rita Bissoonauth: In Ethiopia, UNESCO Liaison Office is addressing gender issues in education system, through the Education for Health and Wellbeing (EHW) Programme. The initiative promotes comprehensive life skills in schools and teacher training colleges. This equips both students and educators with knowledge on reproductive health, gender equality, consent, and personal safety. In addition, the program strengthens safe and inclusive learning environments by addressing school-related gender-based violence (SRGBV). UNESCO has supported the development of national manuals and guidelines to help schools prevent and respond to violence, ensuring that every girl can learn in a safe and supportive space. Furthermore, the initiative emphasizes community and religious leader engagement. By working with influential local figures, the EHW program helps shift cultural and social norms that perpetuate early marriage and gender-based discrimination.
UNESCO promotes sustainable development through programs in water security, climate resilience, biosphere reserves, geoparks, and sustainable agriculture. Gender equality is supported by creating opportunities for women and girls in STEM, research, and decision-making roles.
UNESCO’s work spans from promoting free flow of information through strengthening norms and capacities on freedom of expression, access to information, media development to strengthening public resilience to digital challenges via media and information literacy and support for digital transformation. Our interventions also extend to protecting, preserving and promoting of Ethiopia’s rich documentary heritage and empowering community media. In all of these, we advance gender equality as priority both in the media and through media.
Capital: How does UNESCO collaborate with the Ethiopian government and local stakeholders to ensure the success and sustainability of its programs?
Dr. Rita Bissoonauth: UNESCO works closely with Ethiopia’s ministries, universities, research institutions, and local communities, in all the sectors that its mandate covers. UNESCO is a laboratory of ideas as we develop instruments, tools and standards adopted for all member states. We localize these tools and instruments and implement them in collaboration with local partners.
We collaborate in capacity building, policy development and awareness raising. An example is the celebration of the World Press Freedom Day in Ethiopia. Since hosting the Global Conference of World Press Freedom Day in 2019 in Addis Ababa, we have continued to collaborate with the government and media institutions to advance freedom of expression and related rights. Each year, we commemorate the Day in Ethiopia by contextualizing the global theme to national priorities and realities. In 2025, for example, the national commemoration focused on the theme of Artificial Intelligence and the media. Building on this momentum, we are now working with the Ethiopia Artificial Intelligence Institute to assess the country’s overall readiness for AI.
We also ensure ownership by empowering stakeholders from the grass roots level: community in engaging them in program implementation as a means for ensuring success and sustainability. Examples are the UNESCO WHS, in biosphere reserves, agroecology, and geopark development, ensuring programs align with national priorities and are sustainable.
Capital: What challenges does UNESCO face in advancing its cultural and educational projects in Ethiopia, and how are these being addressed?
Dr. Rita Bissoonauth: The global crisis like COVID and financial crisis have impacted UNESCO regular program budget to implement its program.
Shortage of experts, particularly in the field heritage restoration is a challenge, which UNESCO makes an effort to support in capacity building.
– The conflict in some parts of the country have disrupted the flow of tourists which in turn impacted on the livelihood of the community and practices of the intangible cultural heritage.
Capital: Can you tell us about upcoming UNESCO events or programs in Ethiopia that aim to further enhance the country’s human development goals?
Dr. Rita Bissoonauth: Planned initiatives include:
- Capacity building for teachers and education stakeholders in the areas of digital transformation in TVET;
- Enhance Ethiopia’s capacity to mainstream climate change adaptation and environmental sustainability into education sector plans, budgets and strategies as well as to enhance education ministry capacity for cross-sectoral coordination on climate and environment-related policy and programming.
- R&D survey training with AUDA-NEPAD;
- Women in Science Initiative;
- and the launch of the JFIT-supported Apiculture Industry Project.
Capital. How is UNESCO working to increase awareness and build capacity among Ethiopian educators and cultural practitioners?
Dr. Rita Bissoonauth: UNESCO delivers workshops, knowledge-sharing platforms, and field programs in water science, biodiversity, and climate adaptation, enhancing scientific literacy, data-driven decision-making, and applied research skills among educators and communities.
UNESCO supports the Cultural and Creative Industry at different levels from monitoring and advice on policy and strategy implementation to developing capacity of the sector practitioners. To mention few examples UNESCO supported three projects, two of which are still ongoing.
Support for the preparation of Quadrennial Periodic Reporting is to monitor the implementation of the regulations and 2005 Convention on the protection and promotion of cultural diversity.
In collaboration with the Ministry of culture and film associations, UNESCO supported the development of implementation strategy and institutional framework for film policy. While also there is on-going initiatives to develop cultural statistics to monitor the contribution of culture for economic development.
Artists supported through different mechanism, such as the organization of International Jazz Day
To mention ongoing projects supported by UNESCO through IFCD (International Fund for Cultural Diversity) each for 100,000 USD;
– Selam Ethiopia benefited for ‘Strengthening intellectual property rights (IPR) in Ethiopia
– Ethiopian Policy Institute supported for ‘Strengthening stakeholder engagement in Ethiopia’s children’s literature ecosystem’
