The Eastern and Southern Africa Higher Education Centers of Excellence (ACE II) Project held its 7th Technical and Advisory Meeting from 13-14th May, 2019 in Nairobi, Kenya. Financed by the World Bank, the ACE II Project supports the governments of Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia in strengthening selected African Centers of Excellence (ACEs) to deliver quality post-graduate education and build collaborative research capacity in the priority areas of (i) Industry, (ii) Agriculture, (iii) Health, (iv) Education, and (v) Applied Statistics.

Speaking at the opening of the meeting that attracted over 100 delegates from participating institutions, the Principal Secretary, State Department for University Education and Research, Ministry of Education, Kenya, Prof. Collette Suda, said that because of the challenges faced by institutions of higher learning in the region, governments agreed to set up Centers of Excellence. “We don’t have the critical mass in most of our universities with the knowledge, skills and competence to drive our economies. On the basis of that we decided, let’s have these centers of excellence which can be a hub for state of the art research on key development issues in the region driven by innovation, creativity, originality, that is in my view the reason we are doing what we are doing. We want to strengthen research, we want to train graduate students so that these students can be a catalyst,” she said.

Prof. Suda talked about the need to tackle the inequities of gender imbalance at universities.

“Everything that we want to do ultimately through this project is to improve the quality of life of human beings. If its research it is such that we can improve our lives as human beings. Human beings are men and women and we should all be on the table, participating,” said Prof. Suda.

She called on ACEs to pay close attention to sustainability for the period after the World Bank financing ends. “Sustainability not just in financial resources but in building human capital, strengthening institutions, building research capacity and infrastructure to enable the ACEs to remain operational, relevant, active, beyond the life of support of the World Bank. We need to be conscious of the fact that this support will come to an end.”

Prof. Alexandre Lyambabaje, the Executive Secretary at the Inter University for East Africa (IUCEA), the Regional Facilitation Unit for ACE II project requested leaders of Centers of Excellence to involve partners from academia and the private sector as was indicated in their proposals.

Senior Education Specialist at the World Bank and Task Team Leader for ACE II, Dr. Roberta Malee Bassett, said the 7th Technical and Advisory Meeting was designed to be technical and operational, to get things on track and have a clear understanding of what was working well. “Collectively we are going to learn from each other and the experts that we have here,” she said.

Paolo Belli, the Program Lead and Acting Country Director, World Bank, Kenya, said ACE II is one of the flagship projects at the regional level in which the World Bank has high expectations.

“We would like it to use it to strengthen this continent’s ability to produce first class research and researchers, and to spur our efforts towards strengthening human capital in this region.”

The three Centers from Kenya exhibited their products throughout the two days. The three Centers are:

• Centre of Excellence in Sustainable Agriculture & Agribusiness Management (CESAAM), Egerton University
• Sustainable Use of Insects as Food and Feeds (INSEFOODS), Jaramogi Odinga Oginga University of Science & Technology
• Centre of Excellence in Phytochemicals Textiles and Renewable Energy (PTRE), Moi University.