The Community Law Centre partners with Addis Ababa University

The Community Law Centre has a Memorandum of Understanding with the Centre for Federal Studies (CFS) at Addis Ababa University. In terms of that MOU, staff of the Community Law Centre regularly teaches at the CFS, particularly in its PhD programme.

In addition, the MOU provides a framework for the exchange of staff and postgraduate students and the organisation of joint seminars and conferences.

On 8 November 2013, Prof. De Visser presented a guest lecture on "Local Government in South Africa's quasi-federal state" at CFS. He took a group of 30 staff members and students at the centre through the history of local government in South Africa, the legal framework, the immense challenges, including the recent spate of service delivery protests and the emergence of new federations on the continent. The lecture was chaired by Dr Regassa, PhD coordinator at CFS and was attended by Mr Gebriahot, the director of the CFS.

The lecture was well-received and elicited many comments and questions. Students wanted to understand, for example, the meaning of the concept 'capable state' in South Africa and also wanted to understand the impact of democracy on traditional leadership in South Africa. They were also interested to understand the impact of the dominance of the African National Congress (ANC) on the multilevel government system and vice versa, the impact of the multilevel government system on the functioning of the ANC.