Building capacity of African Universities to train proactive graduates through partnerships: The case of RUFORUM and Carnegie

Africa is currently last in all the knowledge economy indicators yet growth and development in a globalized world are driven by a knowledge economy. Although Africa demonstrated strong economic performance during the last decade, with at least 4.5% GDP growth, extreme poverty has grown with number of poor increasing dramatically over the past 15 years. With only 20% of academic staff having PhDs in public higher education institutions in Africa, universities face difficulties in serving local needs and responding to the market demand in order to reduce poverty. Accordingly, universities need to harness higher education partnerships so as to address the current inadequacy for higher education systems in Africa and help universities provide quality training, particularly at graduate (Masters and Doctoral) level and to harness regional, continental and global lessons and experiences. The Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM), a network of 60 universities in 25 African countries, has partnered with Carnegie Corporation of New York in a bid to strengthen the capacity for graduate training in African universities. Under this partnership Carnegie has provided two grants (the first $997,900 and the second $1,505,400) to support training of PhD students in selected regional PhD programmes in Africa. To date, 114 scholarships have been awarded, and already 29 students have completed their PhD training and returned to their home institutions. This paper highlights key achievements of this 5-year partnership, draws some lessons learned from implementation, and suggests possible future orientation for the partnership and other initiatives.