Professor Maria Ivanovo, a renowned UN Climate Change Negotiator and faculty member of the University of Massachusetts Boston delivered a speech on the coordination of environmental programs and issues of sustainability to the Addis Ababa University community on January 22, 2016 at the university’s senate hall.

Emphasizing on nurturing multiplicity while avoiding fragmentation in environmental programs, she identified design, leadership and location as the most important factors that matter most for various environmental programs in achieving their goals. She went on to argue that leadership at all level should play their own role in making environmental programs more successful, suggesting how a collaborative and collective leadership effort could contribute to the bigger picture of environmental governance and issue of sustainability.

Professor Maria elaborated how strong communication, coordination, engagement as well as partnership among environmental programs could contribute in alleviating environmental problems across the globe. Besides teaching, research and engagement in environmental programs, she urged the higher education institutions in Ethiopia to establish an entity that will be mandated to create the country’s identity in environmental governance and sustainability.

Moderating the session, AAU’s Academic Vice President, Jeilu Oumer (PhD) pointed out that the university has reorganized all the environmental programs under three clusters,following an intensive program review. According to his explanation, the restructuring was conducted with the aim of minimizing cost as well as fragmentation while strengthening and promoting the efficiency of such environmental programs. He further indicated that the university is now on the eve of launching the newly structured environmental programs.

Following her insightful presentation was a Q & A session. Specifically, questions about the challenges of bringing various environmental programs of the Addis Ababa University under one roof on the one hand and the appropriateness of centralized environmental governance approach on the other were raised and deliberated on.

Students and faculty members from the college of development studies, the college of natural sciences as well as the college of social sciences were part of the seminar.

Maria Ivanovo, a renowned UN Climate Change Negotiator, is Associate Professor of Global Governance at the John W. McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston where she also co-directs the Center for Governance and Sustainability. Her academic work has been recognized for bringing analytical rigor and innovative input to the international negotiations on reforming the UN system for environment. She is a member of a number of international organizations which include the Scientific Advisory Board of the UN Secretary-General, UN University Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability and the Ecologic Institute in Berlin.