Addis Ababa light rail transit system energy flow analysis

With the continued focus on growing energy prices and environmental concerns, lowering energy consumption and maintaining the environmental sustainability of railway systems is becoming a crucial problem to which greater attention is being paid. In recent years, urban rail systems have grown in popularity as a method for reducing traffic congestion and pollution in metropolitan areas. Despite the fact that the railway system is likely the most energyefficient mode of land-based transportation, there is still potential for improvement. In this regard, significant amounts of energy can be saved by installing energy storage on an electrified transit system allowing energy from braking to be captured. However, the amount of energy saved is dependent on the amount of energy transferred during braking, which relies on the drive cycle and the vehicle parameters. The overall benefit can be determined by analyzing the energy flow through components in an electrified transit system. In this paper, electrified transit system energy flows are analyzed for Addis Ababa light rail transit system. The methodology used assesses energy flows in the traction system, establishing where energy is dissipated. The analysis is performed for a specified drive cycle. Finally, the analysis showed that 37.9 % of the total energy loss over a drive cycle could be saved in Addis Ababa light rail transit system

Genotype x Environment Interaction Analysis of Tef Grown in Southern Ethiopia Using Additive Main Effects and Multiplicative Interaction Model

Twenty-two tef [Eragrostis tef (Zucc.) Trotter] genotypes were evaluated for their grain yield performances at four locations namely Areka, Humbo, Hossana and Alaba  in 2002/03. The objectives were to estimate genotype x environment interaction, to identify stable tef genotypes, and to assess the interaction patterns of the testing locations. Significant (p<0.05) differences for grain yield among genotypes were observed at each location; across locations, the effects of location, genotype and G x E were significant (p<0.05). AMMI partitioned genotype x environment variance into four Interaction Principal Component Axes (IPCAs), but significant was (p<0.05) only the first IPCA that captured 49% of the total G x E variance. The study revealed that the released variety DZ-Cr-255 was highly stable and better yielding variety across the locations. Areka and Hossana showed close IPCA1 scores of similar sign, and coupled with their higher location mean yields, may represent relatively better testing environments. Keywords: genotype x environment interaction, AMMI model, stability, variet

The status of medical laboratory towards of AFRO-WHO accreditation process in government and private health facilities in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Introduction: The World Health Organization Regional Office for Africa (WHO AFRO) introduces a step  wise incremental accreditation approach to improving quality of laboratory and it is a new initiative in Ethiopia and activities are performed for implementation of accreditation program.Methods: Descriptive cross sectional study was conducted in 30 laboratory facilities including 6  laboratory sections to determine their status towards of accreditation using WHO AFRO accreditation checklist and 213 laboratory professionals were interviewed to assess their knowledge on quality system essentials and accreditation in Addis Ababa Ethiopia. Results: Out of 30 laboratory facilities 1 private  laboratory scored 156 (62%) points, which is the minimum required point for WHO accreditation and the  least score was 32 (12.8%) points from government laboratory. The assessment finding from each section indicate that 2 Clinical chemistry (55.2% & 62.8%), 2 Hematology (55.2% & 62.8%), 2 Serology (55.2% & 62.8%), 2 Microbiology (55.2 % & 62.4%), 1 Parasitology (62.8%) & 1 Urinalysis (61.6%) sections scored the minimum required point for WHO accreditation. The average score for government laboratories was 78.2 (31.2%) points, of these 6 laboratories were under accreditation process with 106.2 (42.5%) average score, while the private laboratories had 71.2 (28.5%) average score. Of 213 respondents 197 (92.5%) professionals had a knowledge on quality system essentials whereas 155  (72.8%) respondents on accreditation. Conclusion: Although majority of the laboratory professionals had knowledge on quality system and  accreditation, laboratories professionals were not able to practice the quality system properly and most of the laboratories had poor status towards the WHO accreditation process. Thus government as well as stakeholders should integrate accreditation program into planning and health policy.Key words: Accreditation, laboratory, quality, SLMTA, WHO-AFR

Enhancing Women-led Community-Based Breeding Programs (CBBPs) in Ethiopia

Community-based breeding program (CBBP) is a genetic improvement program based on the local stock, local experiences and scientific methods of genetics. CBBP is a participatory genetic improvement program that considers informal and community-driven community-based organizations (CBOs). CBBP was initiated in 2009, and over 150 CBBP villages are functional, with considerable success, in Ethiopia through the engagement of research centers, universities, agricultural extension, and NGOs. Women are traditionally responsible for caring for sheep and goats, but men usually make decisions and sales. While the original CBBP programs were theoretically open to all genders, we noticed that the involvement of women in these programs was minimal. Therefore, we started intervening through gender-targeted capacity development and transformative-action community conversations. But gender norms run deep, and we found that, in mixed-gender settings, women were unlikely to speak up or show leadership. When you put everyone together, usually, the men dominate. So, to get an idea of women's roles in breeding programs and other value generators, it's always good to consult the women separately. And at some stage, we said, 'why don't we just start a women's CBBP? Hence, we established women CBBPs in a few villages in Ethiopia starting in 2019. In doing so, we created a safe space for women to speak freely, participate in decision-making, and claim leadership and committee positions. Women-led cooperatives are characterized by the following: Women are the drivers of the CBBP cooperatives, the members of the cooperatives are women, the leadership of the cooperatives is women, and any training and communication are made with women. Women are decisionmakers in CBBPs in women-led CBBPs. The small ruminant innovations are channeled through women's groups. Hence, there is a need to establish more women-led CBBP cooperatives to exploit the inherent indigenous knowledge of women and ensure women's empowerment

Investment by Ethiopian Government Universities to Run Community-based Breeding Programs (CBBPs) in Nearby Villages as part of their Outreach Program

CBBP is a proven innovation that has been tested over the years through the engagement of multiple stakeholders. However, the pilots have not scaled to the extent they wished. The actors of CBBP were research institutes, extension and NGOs. To bring about impact at scale, various partners need to join hands to disseminate the innovation to a wider area and reach more beneficiaries. Engaging multiple stakeholders having a shared mandate is important to scale up the proven technology. Universites, although they have a tremendous role in scaling of innovations as part of their outreach program, their involvement was minimal. Initiating CBBPs in nearby villages ensures the synergy of research, education and community service of the Universities. With this rationale, we undertook awareness creation at different levels of the University staff and we were able to convince them to allocate resources to benefit from CBBP to synergize the triple mandates of the Universities. The Universities have, therefore, allocated a budget by considering CBBP as a flagship project covering over five years. The budget allocation passed through a rigorous review process under the community services program. The budget allocation is meant for enumerator contractual payments, material purchases to run baseline information, medicaments, supervision cost and capacity building at each stage. There is a consistent increase of participating universities in running CBBP, and benefiting from the experience. As a result, more than 16 Universities have allocated a budget (40,337,656 Birr (706,108 USD)) to run 42 CBBPs

Climate-Smart Bundled Small Ruminant Innovations in the Curriculum of Ethiopian Universities

Relevance and quality of education are ensured by updating the curriculum with contemporary data and experiences. Universities and staff teaching courses must update the curriculum to make our curriculum need-based and meet the current changes and experiences. Including local data in our teaching and learning documents is an equally important issue. Including local data arouses students' interest and motivation to learn and ensure the relevance of education. A researcher may have data and articles from the research endeavors, and using the same data for teaching and learning eases the understanding of the chapter or the topic in the face of the students. The experience shall also help the teacher make the topic more relevant because the data is generated from the researcher's experience. The case studies could also be picked from the local research outputs, which could ultimately make part of the teaching resources to ensure the relevance of the teaching and learning efforts. This basic principle has driven us to include CBBP in Ethiopian universities' undergraduate programs. We integrated CBBP into 27 undergraduate programs in 27 Universities. The CBBP in a post-graduate program differs from the undergraduate program in terms of depth, case studies coverage, and sophistication of data analyses. The experience in the undergraduate program gave us the impetus to include CBBP in post-graduate programs. We integrated CBBP in 15 Universities and 32 post-graduate programs (26 MSc and 6 Ph.D. programs). The Universities also run CBBPs in the nearby communities, which could generate data and create a learning hub to improve the competence of graduates

Climate-Smart Small Ruminant Innovations (Smart Pack) Implemented by Universities

The International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), in partnership with ILRI and Ethiopian NARs, has been pilot-testing climate-smart integrated small ruminant value chain development innovations (Smart Pack) over many years in Ethiopia. Smart pack encompasses innovations such as sheep and goat genetics, improved feeding, gender capacity development and transformation, herd health package and marketing. Results of the evaluation of the implementation of the Smart Pack have revealed that such packages are technically feasible to implement and result in the improvement of the livelihood of the resource-poor. Therefore, they are ready to scale. Consequently, we worked with Ethiopian Universities to see if they could assist in the scaling of the innovations in nearby villages to meet their teaching, research and community service mandate. Our sustained effort has resulted in 16 Universities investing in establishing 42 breeding cooperatives involved in implementing Smart Pack

Learning from Each Other: Experience Sharing Workshop on Implementation of Smart Pack and CBBP among Ethiopian Public Universities

A workshop geared towards understanding the status of universities in implementing CBBP in terms of CBBP village establishment and streamlining and uses of the integrated curricula with CBBP was conducted in two clusters ( May 31, 2023, in Bahir Dar) and ( June 1, 2023, in Adama). In addition, experience exchange through the presentation of universities in implementing CBBP was presented, and the background training was delivered on SmaRT pack (Small ruminant transformation packages associated with Feed and feeding, Health interventions, Genetic improvement, and livestock marketing by ICARDA and ILRI scientists. Five Universities in the first workshop (May 31, 2023) and three Universities in the second workshop (June 1, 2023) presented their status in implementing CBBP in their respective universities. Other Universities were also allowed to reflect on their status, followed by discussion and experience sharing. The training has covered the SmaRT pack (Small ruminant transformation packages) that has addressed genetic improvement, Feed development and intervention, health intervention and market channels, and enabling environments such as cooperative organization and capacity building that hastens small ruminant value chain to produce a quality product and improve the livelihood and food security status of the community. Twenty-nine Undergraduates and thirty-seven postgraduates (five Ph.D. and 32 M.Sc programs) have streamlined Community Breeding Program in the curricula and implemented teaching practices and knowledge products of CBBP ‘’ Guideline line for setting up the community-based small ruminant breeding program is in use as a reference material to teach animal breeding courses in all universities (Haile et al., 2020) and others were used as a reference material to teach Animal breeding courses in undergraduate and postgraduate programs. Community-based breeding program villages, which symbolize climate-smart agriculture, have been initiated under the universities' budgetary and technical support. More than 58 villages have been initiated under the support of 20 universities and mobilized more than 1 million USD. The villages serve as a learning site and sources of longitudinal data to hasten research and paved the way for demonstrating CBBP that showcased impactful community services through CBBP. Other universities are also in the progress of implementing CBBP activities based on the lessons of the champion universities. More than 4440 farmers are beneficiaries of CBBP initiatives, and more than 1400 students/year are beneficiaries of a streamlined CBBP in the curriculum. The key lessons captured in implementing CBBP in the university program includes showcasing other programs to have local data and practices in teaching resource and contribute to the quality and relevance of education, resource mobilization, and demonstrating the synergy of learning, research, and community services, ensuring teamwork to bring impactful community services and a continuous capacity building and provision of training materials which could be reflected in teaching and learning efforts of universities. There are also future activities that need to address, such as strengthening CBBPs and supporting the programs sustainably and scaling up the programs based on the scaling framework and reaching out to millions of small ruminant keepers, and improving food security and the income and livelihood of communities at household and community level. Fifty-six (two women) participants were part of the experience-sharing workshop in the two venues (Bahir Dar and Adama)