Nigeria will host the 10th meeting of the Africa Centres of Excellence (ACE) Project Steering Committee (PSC), scheduled to hold on 15 May, 2017, to be followed by the seventh ACE Regional Project Workshop from 16 – 18 May, 2017. This was the unanimous decision of the Committee, taken at its ninth meeting, held at the Radisson Blu Hotel, Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire, on 14 November, 2016. The PSC meeting was held the day before the sixth ACE Project Workshop, which ran from 15 – 17 November, 2016.
The Committee met to obtain and examine the update on the project and regional facilitation activities; discuss the Mid-Term Review (MTR) of the project and determine the next line of activities. Chairman of the PSC, Prof. Zasseli Ignace Biaka, who was represented by Cote d’Ivoire’s Director General of Higher Education, Professor Nindjin Aka Flugence, welcomed members to the country and expressed appreciation that his country had also come on board the ACE project. He assured the Committee that the three Ivorian ACEs would work hard to catch up with the initial 19 Centres. He thanked the World Bank, AAU, participating countries and their representatives for all the support and efforts provided for the success of the ACE project in the region.
In his welcome address, Secretary General of the AAU, Prof. Etienne Ehile, noted that human capital development was at the heart of the development of African countries. It was therefore important to promote skills and competences in the continent’s higher institutions. While noting that there were many challenges facing higher education in Africa, Professor Ehile said ACE was a laudable project that could address those challenges. It was, therefore, the responsibility of all stakeholders to ensure the development of the Centres.
In their various remarks, World Bank Task Team Leader, Mr. Andreas Blom and Education Practice Manager, Mr. Halil Dundar noted the progress made by the Centres so far and that the time had come to do a mid-term review (MTR) of the Project, having clocked two years. The MTR offers an opportunity for the Governments, AAU and the World Bank to jointly revisit the project design and implementation as well as resolve problems.
According to the World Bank Specialists, ACE is not only a flagship regional higher education project of the Bank, but also the first results-based one, where disbursements to beneficiaries are made using already established Disbursement Linked Indicators (DLIs), such as enrolment, internationally recognised publications, externally generated revenue, number of partnerships, internships, national and international accreditations, among others.
Mr. Dundar disclosed that the Project, which is now known as ACE1, had generated new knowledge, adding that the identified challenges, new ideas and lessons learned, so far, were being deployed to the recently instituted ACE2 project in East Africa.
AAU made a brief presentation on the progress since the last PSC meeting, held in Accra, Ghana, last May. The report highlighted the performance of the ACEs in achieving the DLIs. It also reported on the successful pilot verification exercise involving five ACEs and the verified results. In line with the results-based nature of the Project, the verified results enabled the AAU/RFU (Regional Facilitation Unit) to issue letters of verification to the five ACEs certifying that their results were verified and stating the amounts due to them. The Committee expressed appreciation of the AAU’s financial report, which covered January to October, 2016.
The World Bank also made a brief presentation on disbursement and funds utilisation, which emphasised the need for the ACEs to utilise their funds and judiciously too. The Bank reminded members that under-performing ACEs may have their funds reallocated to ACEs that were doing well. The Bank listed some of the project management implementation challenges facing the ACEs that needed urgent attention, in order to achieve the project development objectives, to include: governance and management, disbursement and verification, attention of the students and their welfare, faculty motivation and industry relations.
Participants at the 6th ACE Regional Project Workshop, held in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire.