Harnessing Regional Capacity to Build Agricultural Capacity for Africa: The case of the Intra-ACP academic Mobility Project for 12 Universities in Africa

The ACP-EU Academic mobility programme has awarded a grant of • 1,980,150 to Makerere University to support collaboration among 12 Higher Agricultural Education Institutions (HAEIs) in Africa with the aim of providing relevant and internationally competitive graduate training to enhance the application of knowledge, science and technology in agriculture for improved livelihoods. Specifically, the grant will enable eight RUFORUM member Universities (operating in Eastern, Central and Southern Africa) to work with each other and three universities in West Africa (both Anglophone and Francophone), and one South African University to share capacity and infrastructure for quality graduate training; support rebuilding the capacity of the HAEIs recently affected by civil strife; create opportunities for African young scientists to acquire Masters and PhD training in agricultural related disciplines; and provide platform for HAEIs to exchange and learn together for the purpose of improving their graduate training. The project will support training 68 students, 48 enrolled in Masters programmes and 17 in PhD programmes; and provide opportunities for mobility of eight staff in staff exchange. The anticipated outcomes of this initiative include capacity of partner HAEIs enhanced to offer better quality training programmes and research in agriculture; retention of highly qualified professionals and reduction on the brain drain; mechanisms and relationships for continued South-South collaboration to share and jointly strengthen capacities for graduate training and research; and consequently, increased quality of research and scholarship resulting from better training professionals within the African context.