Bahir Dar University and Boeing announced a long-term partnership to accelerate aviation innovation, strengthen aerospace engineering education and develop skilled talent for the growing aviation sector in Ethiopia and beyond.

“Over the next two decades, African carriers will need more than 1,200 new airplanes and 74,000 new aviation professionals”, said Henok Teferra Shawl, Boeing Africa managing director, at the signing ceremony. “Together with Bahir Dar University, we will help create clear career pathways for young talent, align education with industry requirements and support the ongoing expansion of Ethiopia’s airline operations, airport infrastructure and aerospace component industrial base”.

The collaboration will support the establishment of an Aviation Innovation Center at Bahir Dar Institute of Technology. The center will become a hub for experiential learning, research and early‑stage incubation.

In a landmark moment for global health and human rights, African countries spearheaded the first-ever resolution adopted by the United Nations Human Rights Council, formally recognizing the profound and inseparable links between human rights and neglected tropical diseases (NTDs).

The historic resolution was led by the Republic of Malawi, alongside a core group of African Member States including Burkina Faso, Kenya, Tanzania, the Gambia and Morocco. It marks the first time NTDs have been formally addressed through a dedicated Human Rights Council resolution – elevating these diseases beyond the health sector and recognizing them as issues of dignity, equity, inclusion, and justice. The adoption represents a major milestone in the global fight against NTDs and a powerful acknowledgment that the more than one billion people affected by these diseases can no longer be left behind.

NTDs are both caused by and drive human rights challenges. Poverty, unsafe water, inadequate housing, poor sanitation, discrimination, and limited access to healthcare create the conditions in which NTDs thrive. In turn, these diseases can cause disability, disfigurement, stigma, exclusion from education and employment, lost income, and preventable death – trapping individuals and communities in cycles of inequality and marginalization.

Since their adoption in 2015, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have delivered results at scale – bringing access to water, electricity and health care to billions. However, progress remains uneven and insufficient. Without a decisive push to rapidly scale up what works, the promise of the SDGs risks slipping out of reach, according to The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2026,released on July 7.

Since 2015, sustained investment, sound policies and international cooperation have improved the lives of billions of people worldwide with measurable gains across the SDGs. Nearly one billion people gained access to safely managed drinking water and 1.2 billion to safely managed sanitation. New HIV infections fell by 30 per cent between 2015 and 2024, and AIDS-related deaths by 35 per cent. Electricity now reaches 92 per cent of the world’s population. Internet access has surged, from 40 to 74 per cent. Social protection covers more than half the global population for the first time in history.

The governments of the United Arab Emirates and the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia announced the expansion of the 5 Million Ethiopian Coders Initiative to 7 million with the addition of 2 million new participants, following the qualitative success achieved by the initiative in exceeding its target less than two years ahead of schedule. This step reflects confidence in its results and its wide impact on building digital capabilities and empowering youth with future skills, within the strategic partnership between the two countries in government modernization and development and building digital capabilities.

This achievement embodies the depth of partnership and cooperation between the two governments in building digital capabilities and empowering national competencies, through the integration of visions and experiences to expand opportunities for access to digital knowledge, enhance the readiness of future generations for future skills, and support the journey of digital transformation and the knowledge-based economy.