Ethiopia

Client: Ministry of Water and Energy (MoWE); – formerly Ministry of Water Resources.

NVE Mandate: Advisory services and capacity building of executing agency MoWE in: i) Implementation of two feasibility and EIA/SIA studies, and; ii) Capacity Building of MoWE in project management and procurement and hydrological services.

Contract Value/ Duration: MNOK 17.463 from Norad, with duration from June 2010 until end 2012.

Type of Activities: Workshops, seminars, training, site visits, hydrological systems and measurement, preparation of documents, procurement, advisory services within project management and hydrology services.

Work Completed 2010:Technical and environmental consultants fielded; Kick-off Workshop for institutional cooperation between MoWE and NVE held.

Work in Progress 2010: Review of technical and environmental consultants’ reports; design of institutional cooperation programmes within project management and hydrological services; training needs assessment; establishment of procurement routines; project procurement officer.

Activities and Outputs:
The current status is:

• Technical consultants for the feasibility studies were engaged by the Ministry in April 2010. Environmental consultants for the Environmental and Social Impact Analyses were engaged by the Ministry in June 2010. Both consultancies were well under way by the end of the year.
• The donors require that Panels of Experts in Dam Safety and Environmental and Social Issues be maintained by the Ministry to oversee, comment and guide the work of the consultants for the feasibility and EIA/SIA studies. By the end of 2010 the procurement of the individual experts for these two panels was almost completed.
• A Kick-off Workshop was held in Addis Ababa in October 2010 in which the baseline for the capacity building and the plans for the institutional cooperation between the MoWE and NVE were elaborated.
  
  

Initially the two projects – Institutional Cooperation and the Feasibility Studies – have been in a transitional state before activities are strictly divided according to the respective projects’ purposes.

Results/Outcome:
Several positive results/outcomes have materialized during 2010. The most important ones are:

• Commissioning and active work of technical consultants and Environmental/Social consultants commenced.
• Kick-off workshop for Institutional Cooperation held; - baseline information and planning of activities identified.