The Inter-University Council for East Africa (IUCEA) has launched an online Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) portal for collecting, analysing, and sharing real time data among technical and vocational institutions in the region.
The portal will also be used by various stakeholders including policy and decision makers, and development partners for informed data driven decision making. It is expected to improve the availability of quality and relevance of data collected from Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) Institutes in the region.
Availability of accurate and reliable data is one of the major challenges facing higher education institutions in East Africa. For instance, the Demographics of African Faculty in the East African Community (DAF-EAC) study undertaken by IUCEA together with a consortium of partners published in 2023, established that there were challenges in accessing quality and reliable data on higher education in the region. According to the study, there is inadequate documentation and lack of centralized data collection and sharing systems within countries in the region. The M&E Portal launched by IUCEA is therefore a significant step in addressing the challenge of quality and reliable data in the region.

United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Ethiopia’s new Mission Director, Scott Hocklander, traveled to Somali Region to meet with regional leadership and to visit USAID development projects. The trip was Director Hocklander’s first since his arrival in Ethiopia.
During the visit, Director Hocklander met with Somali Regional State President Mustafe M. Omer to discuss USAID’s longstanding partnership with the people of Ethiopia, including those in the Somali Region. Director Hocklander emphasized USAID’s commitment to increasing agricultural production, delivering quality public health and education services, and extending safe water supplies and basic sanitation across the region.
He also met with the Somali Regional Disaster Risk Management Commission to discuss progress with the Government of Ethiopia to address humanitarian food aid diversion and to develop an efficient aid distribution system in Ethiopia to safeguard future assistance from diversion.
Director Hocklander visited a USAID-supported youth center in Jigjiga, which is part of the USAID Kefeta youth empowerment program, implemented in Jigjiga by the Forum on Sustainable Child Empowerment (FSCE). He listened to the young women and men at the youth center, who explained how the program has transformed their lives and discussed how USAID can better partner with them to achieve their goal of empowerment.

The Ethiopian Civil Society Organizations Council (ECSOC) said that it realizes that the conflict is taking place in densely populated areas, notably cities, thereby causing the loss of innocent lives, restricting the fundamental rights of citizens; causing instability in the region and portending a great social and humanitarian crisis.
Recognizing the potential threat to peace and security at national level if the armed conflict in the region is not peacefully resolved in the short term, and taking into account the wide ranging problems that are already challenging the country, the Council call for the parties involved in a conflict to prioritize seeking a peaceful and lasting solution instead of resorting to the use of force, taking a lesson from past experiences; and for the government to make the necessary efforts to resolve the conflicts that have arisen in the Amhara region so that the activities for peacemaking that have previously commenced can bear fruit; as well as, for the armed groups to restrain from resorting to violence and give priority to a peaceful solution.

Following an overwhelming response to its most recent Grand Challenges request for proposals, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation today announced a group of nearly 50 grant recipients who are developing global health and development solutions for their communities using AI-enabled large language models (LLMs). Guided by the goal of reducing global inequity, the call for proposals specifically targeted researchers and innovators in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).
Responsible and safe use of AI-driven LLM technology has the potential to help solve some of the world’s toughest health and development challenges. However, for these models to be useful in LMICs, researchers in LMICs need to participate in the design, application, and testing of this technology as it rapidly evolves. A robust evidence base will fill gaps in access and our knowledge about the application of such tools to address problems across LMICs in an equitable way.