On June.22, Mr.Haile Fiseha Tesema, City Manager of Addis Ababa (the capital of Ethiopia) visited Tongji University (hereinafter referred to as Tongji) and met with Wu Jiang, Executive Vice President of Tongji. During their meeting, the letter of intent was signed, both sides would work together on the river remediation and urban planning of Addis Ababa.

Wu Jiang briefly reviewed the UNEP-China-Africa Cooperation Programme on the Environment with the financial support of Ministry ofScienceandTechnology from both sides, design and construction of the African Union center, educational exchange, academic cooperation and so on . He also looked back to the exchanges and cooperation in different aspects such as water resources control, sewage treatment, supply of safe water, construction, solid waste management, etc.

Fiseha expressed his thanks to Tongji on its cooperation and support in the referred fields above and introduced the latest development of urban planning and river remediation in Addis Ababa, and conveyed his willingness to long-build the cooperation with Tongji in these fields.

Witnessed by the members from Addis Ababa government delegation and representatives from Tongji, Wu Jiang and Fiseha signed the letter of intent. They expressed their preliminaryagreement on urban water resources management, river planning and management, water remediation, urban planning, urban waste management and other key municipal administration. Deputy Dean Prof. Li Fengting and Vice Dean Dr. Wang Xin also attended the ceremony.

Recently, the administration of Addis Ababa started Addis Ababa Rivers and Riversides Development and Climate Change Adaptation Project Office, which belonged to municipal government, aiming at promoting the reconstruction, renovation and repair of rivers in their city. Tongji University and Ethiopia nicely kept cooperating with each other many years with their mutual visits among their top leaders. Leader of Tongji University Prof. Yang Xianjin, together with delegation from Tongji, visited Ethiopia’s Ministry of Education and discussed their plan to build university of communication in Africa on March,3rd, 2016. Former leader of Tongji University Prof. Zhou Zuyi with his delegation visited Addis Ababa University on October 30th, 2013, discussed the sustainable development of higher education, their cooperation and reinforce it with Africa. Vice Prime Minister of Ethiopia Demeke Mekonnen along with minister of state and other ten officials visited Tongji in November, 2014. Vice President of Tongji, Jiang Bo offered proposal and exchanged ideas with the visiting group on the cooperation of construction, urban planning and environmental protection. On November 13th, 2014, Vice President Wu Jiang met with the Vice-President of Addis Ababa University and Mr. Yohannes Fanta, the Consulate-General of Ethiopia in Shanghai. They both presented their hopes to extend cooperation on urban planning, construction design and environmental governance, etc.