Establishment and piloting of post graduate programmes in selected African post conflict countries

This paper shares experiences in the establishment and piloting of postgraduate programmes supporting agricultural development in selected francophone universities of Africa. Through stakeholder consultations six programmes were identified but only five were developed (2 in Burundi, 2 in Madagascar and 1 in D.R. Congo) by the local partners with the support from Agreenium, Montpellier, Makerere University and the Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM). The programmes were accredited nationally, three were launched officially during the RUFORUM Vice Chancellor meeting in Windhoek, Namibia in August 2015 but only one is so far being piloted. Several challenges were identified during the processes of establishment and implementation of the developed postgraduate programmes in each the three countries. However, inadequate infrastructure, insufficient resources allocated to education and their unequal distribution between wages, pedagogy, research and investment, limited skilled manpower and inappropriate and /or lack of linkage with market/industry needs were the common challenges affecting their implementation. In addition, shortcomings in the university governance, leadership and communication with the line Ministries constituted barrier to the implementation of the developed programmes. Successful post graduate programme implementation will not only require solution to the aforementioned challenges but also an LMD implementation strategy.