The World Bank has urged the 19 Africa Centres of Excellence (ACE) to demonstrate to the world how universities in Africa can come out of the famous ivory tower and become engines of development.
Ms. Marie Francoise Marie-Nelly, World Bank Country Director for Nigeria, reminded the universities that they won the grants through a highly competitive, transparent and merit-based selection, which must reflect in their delivery as Centres of Excellence.
She said it is widely acknowledged that aligning higher education with Africas needs of today could rapidly transform the continent, adding that, home grown solutions are urgently needed to help fight the impacts of climate change, improve health services, and ensure access to safe water and modern sanitation.
Ms. Marie-Nelly made the appeal on Thursday in a speech read on her behalf by Professor Foluso Okunadewa, World Bank Sector Leader for Human Development, Nigeria, at the formal launch of the ACE Project Centres in Abuja.
She said while this project alone would not solve Africa\u2019s problem and poverty today, it would help to lay the real long term foundations for development, which means educating and training African children and youth.
Mr. Nyesom Wike, Federal Supervising Minister of Education in Nigeria, who formally launched the project, also urged the universities to work harder to justify the confidence reposed in them, so that within the next few years to come, they would place among the top 500 universities of the world.
Professor Olusola Oyewole, President of the Association of African Universities (AAU), gave the assurance that the organisation was committed to seeing the ACE Project fully implement for the benefit of Africa.
Prof Etienne Ehouan Ehile, AAU Secretary General, commended the Bank for its paradigm shift in placing premium on higher education to the extent of establishing the ACE Project.
The ACE Project, which is being financed by the World Bank through the facilitation of the AAU, seeks to promote regional specialisation among participating universities in areas that address specific and common regional development challenges, such as Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics (STEM), Health and Agricultural.
The Bank is making available 150 million dollars for the project, with each selected centre entitled to a maximum of eight million dollars.
The distribution of the centres are Nigeria 10, Ghana 3, Senegal 2, while Togo, Cameroun, the Gambia, Benin and Burkina Faso each had 1.
The Regional Centres in Ghana are the Regional Water and Environmental Sanitation Centre, Kumasi (RWESCK) at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), the West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI) and the West Africa for Cell Biology of Infectious Pathogens, all at the University of Ghana, Legon. RWESCK and WACCI were selected as lead ACEs in STEM and Agriculture respectively following presentations at breakout sessions.
Speaking at the official lunch, Prof. Eric Y. Danquah, WACCI Director, said the University, as part of its contribution towards addressing the apparent shortage of plant breeders in the sub-region, established the centre, with initial funding from the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), to train plant breeders, at the PhD level, to improve the indigenous crops of the sub-region. He said plant breeding is widely recognized as a means by which agricultural productivity could be enhanced through the genetic improvement of crops. The Director said the Centre in 2013 graduated the first batch of eight PhD students and would be graduating another 10 this year, in July. He declared that within the next few years, WACCI would have graduated 100 PhD students from the West Africa sub-region. He added that, the ACE project offered WACCI the opportunity to transform the Centre into a sustainable African Centre of Excellence for the training of plant breeders and seed scientists and technologists.
Dr Kwabena Biritwum Nyarko, Senior Lecturer, Civil Engineering Department, KNUST, said the RWESCK would collaborate with other institutions and industries to solve the water and environmental sanitation problems in the sub-region, by bridging the gap between academia and industries.
Prof John Gyapong, Pro-Vice Chancellor of the University of Ghana, who led the Universitydelegation to the launch, told the Ghana News Agency that the ACE Project is a good initiative, but in order to get the best out of it, governmental support was needed.
By Iddi Z. Yire, GNA Special Correspondent in Abuja. Courtesy, the Association of African Universities.
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