Africa Centers of Excellence Phase I
8TH Project Steering Committee Meeting and 5th
Workshop
Accra, Ghana, 16th
to 19th May 2016
PRESS RELEASE
The Africa Higher Education Centre of Excellence (ACE) Project, is a World Bank sponsored initiative aimed at promoting regional specialization in disciplinary fields (such as Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, Health, and Agriculture) that address regional development challenges, as well as facilitating the delivery of high quality training and applied research, and meet the skills demand of the regional labour market.
Phase I of the ACE Project focuses on countries
in West
and
Central Africa, while Phase II focuses
on countries in Eastern and Southern Africa.
The ACE Project has two main components. Component 1 seeks to strengthen the capacity of 22 competitively selected institutions as centres
of excellence to deliver regional
and quality training and applied research, in partnership with regional and international academic institutions and industry
related organizations.
Under Component 2, the objective is to support regional capacity building activities, project implementation, monitoring
and evaluation, and develop regional policies. In
addition, to boost regional collaboration and strengthen
higher education institutions, support will be provided to The Gambia so that
its
institutions can purchase education services from the
centres of excellence established
under Component 1.
There are 22 ACEs in nine countries in West and Central Africa as follows: Benin
Republic (1 ACE), Burkina Faso (1 ACE), Cameroun (1 ACE), Cote
d’Ivoire (3 ACEs), Ghana (3 ACEs), Nigeria (10 ACEs)
Senegal (2 ACEs), Togo
(1 ACE),
and The Gambia that is buying services
from
the
22 ACEs.
The project which began
in 2013 has held 7 Project Steering Committee (PSC) Meetings and 4 ACE Project workshops. The first workshop was held
in Abuja, Nigeria in May 2014 where the project was also officially launched.
The
second workshop took place in Yaounde,
Cameroun in November 2014, the third in Banjul, The Gambia in May
2015 and the fourth one in Cotonou,
Benin Republic in November 2015.
Ghana is hosting the 8th PSC Meeting and the 5th Workshop of the ACE Project at the La Palm Royal Beach Hotel, Accra from 16th to 19th May 2016.
About 200 participants
are
expected from all
the 22 ACEs. The World Bank
Task Team Leaders from all the participating countries are also expected, in
addition to subject area experts of STEM, Health and Agriculture.
Discussions will centre on progress made in project implementation
since disbursement of funds, challenges encountered, revenue generation efforts,
sharing of experiences
and next steps.
The Centres of Excellence in Ghana are hosted by the University of Ghana, Legon,
(West African Centre for Crop Improvement, WACCI) and West African Centre for
Cell Biology of Infectious Pathogens, WACCBIP). The
third Centre is hosted by Kwame Nkrumah
University
of
Science
and
Technology, (Centre for Water and Environmental Sanitation).
Prof. Jonathan Mba
ACE Coordinator