The University of Gondar has been established in 1954 as faculty of health sciences. Following the rapid
expansion of higher education sector, it was re-launched as full-fledged University in 2004. The
University is one of the frontrunners in the transformative dynamics of the sector in the country. The
University since its establishment 60 years ago has solid foundation of serving the community through
production of quality graduates and rendering services in health care, environmental protection and
rural development, computational sciences and engineering. The Department of Development and
Environmental Management Studies (DEMS) is one of the prominent departments in the college of social
sciences of University of Gondar which present an interesting blend of young and senior academic staff
with long experience in offering combined track courses on environment and development issues with
refined focus to the local environment. This effort has secured recognition and award from UNEP for
Mainstreaming Environmental Sustainability in Africa (MESA) in its curricula design in the year 2007.
In the college the department has excelled in defining prominent thematic focus on process of
development intervention, national and local changes to reach out to communities by
networking/collaborating with relevant stakeholders. The department has specifically collaborated and
taken the lead initiative in research and community outreach projects in areas of human trafficking,
issues of informality, food security, sustainable land management practice, urban poverty, rural energy
transition ad regional transition in agricultural systems.

Recently, the department has taken into consideration the rate of positive change in the higher
education sector in the country in general and in our University in particular, thus looking into options of
revamping its curricular orientation to flexible and demand oriented and also evaluating its core focus of
local level self-sufficiency and poverty reduction in the program to broader scope transition and
sustainability studies with special focus on Post Graduate program. The department is currently running
Post Graduate programme in public policy and sustainable development and ambitiously preparing to
launch a PhD program in development studies for practitioners.