Ethiopia and Russia have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to work together on the peaceful use of nuclear energy, in Moscow, Russia, on June 19, 2017.
The document was signed on behalf of the Ethiopian Ministry of Science & Technology (MoST) and ROSATOM State Atomic Energy Corporation, a Russian nuclear technologies company, by Afework Kassu (left), state minister of Science & Technology, and Nikolai Spasskiy (right), deputy director general of ROSATOM, in the presence of Girum Abay, Ethiopia’s Ambassador to Russia (middle).
The agreement, which is the first of its kind, will enable Ethiopia to develop nuclear infrastructure, and raise public knowledge of nuclear equipment and usage in industrial, agricultural and medical sectors.
“We have not yet decided where to set up the research centre,” Afework said. “But, our tentative plan is to build in one of the science and technology universities.”
“This will be one step forward for a country which is fully dependent on renewable resources,” Viktor Polikarpov, regional vice president of ROSATOM in sub-Saharan Africa, told Fortune.
The centre is expected to be opened before the end of the second edition of the Growth & Transformation plan, according to Afework.