Dire Dawa University (DDU) is found in the industrial and commercial city of Dire Dawa, which is located at 515 km east of Addis Ababa. DDU is a young higher institution, established and started its teaching and learning activities in 2007 academic year.

The establishment of the university is in line with Ethiopian Governments willingness and determination to expand higher education coverage and ensure its equitable distribution across the country in order to produce competent human resources and research out puts to meet the national development policy and poverty reduction strategy. The actual operation of the university was begun by enrolling 754 regular students in three faculties (Faculty of Natural Science and Mathematics, Faculty of Social Science and language and Faculty of Business and Economics) in 13 different undergraduate academic programs with 90 teachers and 103 administrative support staff operating with limited facilities.

In 2008, the satellite campus of Haromaya University was merged with Dire Dawa University, which gave an opportunity to gain more buildings and workshops. Today, in 2015academic year, just after eight years of existence, DDU has one Institute of Technology and Five College(College of Natural & Computational Science, College of Business & Economics, College of Social Sciences & Humanities, College of Law and College of Medicine and Health Science)containing 33 different academic programs.