The Diplomacy and Foreign Policy Research Center (DFPRC) is established by Bahir Dar University Senate, pursuant to Article 10(12) and 82(1) of BDU Senate Legislation 2020, and Article 49(3) of Higher Education Institution Proclamation No. 1152/2019.

Core Values of the Center

DFPRC aims to promote efficiency, effectiveness, and excellence in the provision of services to all its clients and stakeholders. It strives to fulfill its mission by embracing the following core values:

Excellence: This will be achieved through a commitment of delivering the highest standards of research and community services regarding the diplomacy and foreign policy.  

Pursuit of wisdom: the endless chase for knowledge generation and (re)production.

Internationalization: producing research results beneficial or adaptable to many countries and entities of the world.

Partnership: Partnership is a core value of DFPRC because it believes that synergies produce results that neither partner could achieve alone.

Interdisciplinary: The DFPRC’s interdisciplinary approach involves considering different points of view, comparing and contrasting them so as to advance innovative and problem-solving research.

Engagement: DFPRC actively and continuously seeks an engagement with local and international communities or agencies in all its activities.

Objectives of the DPFRC

  • To produce applied and basic research outputs in diplomacy and foreign policy that will contribute to defending and realizing the national interests of Ethiopia;
  • To execute public diplomacy tasks offered by the government of Ethiopia so as to produce vibrant public diplomats;
  • To make Bahir Dar University as the center for the diplomacy and foreign policy training and research activities to contribute to the country’s peace, development and prosperity;
  • To provide trainings for potential diplomats of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ethiopia;
  • To contribute a policy brief and consultancy services in the area of foreign policy and diplomacy;
  • To develop an information resource center on the research, development, and policy aspects of foreign policy and diplomacy;
  • To organize national and international events (conferences, workshops, panel discussions; webinars, public lectures, and so on) on the diplomacy and foreign policy areas;
  • To provide community services in the areas of diplomacy and foreign policy;
  • To be the hub of internship for students and researchers in the area of diplomacy and foreign policy.

Research Focus Areas of the DFPRC

The Diplomacy and Foreign Policy Research Center has following five grand themes/sub-thematic research areas:

Public Diplomacy

  • Taxonomies and Histories of Public Diplomacy;
  • The Role of public Diplomacy for mutual understandings;
  • State’s experience in Public Diplomacy;
  • Diaspora community as public Diplomacy agent;
  • GERD and public diplomacy;
  • Public Diplomacy actors and their diplomatic capacity;
  • Knowledge Diplomacy: the role of higher education institutions in Africa;
  • Public Diplomacy and the roles of emerging Medias and Ttechnologies;
  • The legal, policy and organizational frameworks of Public Diplomacy;
  • Ethiopia’s National Interests and Public Diplomacy;
  • Comparative Public Diplomacy.

 Pan-Africanism and Regional Integration

  • Decolonizing African Education Curriculum System;
  • Pan-Africanism, Globalization and Identities;
  • Pan Africanism and External influence;
  • Pan Africanism and its discourse;
  • Agenda 2063 and United States of Africa;
  • Mechanism and Instruments of Africa’s Regional Integration;
  • Comparative Analysis of Regional blocks;
  • One passport, one airline, one road;
  • Ethiopia’s role for Pan-Africanism, African solutions to African problems;
  • The roles of higher education institutions in promoting the ideals of Pan-Africanism;
  • Transforming African Union’s values, and principles into policy and practices.
  • he Diplomacy and Foreign Policy  Research   Center   (DFPRC)   at   BDU has identified ‘Pan-
  • Africanism   and   Regional   Integration’   as   key   focus   research   areas.   The   center   has   recently
  • announced a call for research projects with the following proposed sub-themes:
  • Ø Decolonizing Nationalism: Reading Pan-Africanist Epistemology 
  • Ø Pan-Africanism in East African Education Curriculum
  • Ø Pan-Africanism, Western “scientific” discourses, (Post-) Coloniality and the limits of
  • Decolonization
  • Ø Pan-Africanism, Globalization and Identities: Crisis or Opportunity?
  • Ø Pan Africanism and Continental People and the Black African Diaspora 
  • Ø Pan Africanism, Modernity,  Development and Foreign Aid
  • Ø Pan-Africanism, Postcolonial Theory, and African historiography
  • Ø Pan-Africanism and East-African Regional Integration in the Era of Globalization
  • he Diplomacy and Foreign Policy  Research   Center   (DFPRC)   at   BDU has identified ‘Pan-
  • Africanism   and   Regional   Integration’   as   key   focus   research   areas.   The   center   has   recently
  • announced a call for research projects with the following proposed sub-themes:
  • Ø Decolonizing Nationalism: Reading Pan-Africanist Epistemology 
  • Ø Pan-Africanism in East African Education Curriculum
  • Ø Pan-Africanism, Western “scientific” discourses, (Post-) Coloniality and the limits of
  • Decolonization
  • Ø Pan-Africanism, Globalization and Identities: Crisis or Opportunity?
  • Ø Pan Africanism and Continental People and the Black African Diaspora 
  • Ø Pan Africanism, Modernity,  Development and Foreign Aid
  • Ø Pan-Africanism, Postcolonial Theory, and African historiography
  • Ø Pan-Africanism and East-African Regional Integration in the Era of Globalization

Border Conflict Resolutions

  • Border conflict transformation strategies;
  • Legal, policy, and organizational frameworks and mechanisms to deal with the conflicts;
  • Causes and dynamics of border conflicts in Africa;
  • Indigenous path for border conflict transformation;
  • State’s interests and border conflict;
  • AU and border conflict resolutions;
  • Ethiopia’s Border conflicts;
  • Silencing the gun and border resolution in Africa.

Geopolitics and Geostrategic

  • National and Regional security;
  • Geopolitics and geostrategic significance of shared resources;
  • The Big powers geopolitical interests in the Middle East and the  Horn of Africa;
  • Ethiopia’s Geopolitical and Geostrategic Interests;
  • Geopolitics of the Middle East and the Horn of Africa;
  • War and peace narrations in Geopolitics;
  • Power in geopolitics and geostrategic;

  • Area Studies and the struggle for power.

    Refugees and Migrations

  • Gender, Migration, and Refugees;
  • Development and Migration;
  • Migration and Globalization;
  • Causes and coping strategies Migration, and Refugees;
  • Migration, Rrefugees, and Hhuman and State security;
  • Impacts of Mmigration and Rrefugees on interstate relations;
  • Youth and Migration;
  • Migration, Refugees and  Governance;
  • Political Economy of Refugees and Migration;
  • Cosmopolitanism and Migration;
  • Territorialization of national Identity and Migration;
  • Fortress Europe? The panacea or denying responsibility to protect;
  • Ethiopia’s response to Refuges and Migration: Refugee integration.