ENSEA/ACE: Opening Ceremony of the 3rd African Centres of Excellence (ACE) Impact and 12th ACE 1 Workshop

Arriving in Abuja, Nigeria on February 24, 2020, a delegation from ENSEA Abidjan is taking part in the biannual workshop of the African Centres of Excellence (ACE), whose opening ceremony took place on February 25 in the Lady Kwali conference room of the Sheraton Hotel which hosts the event.

The World Bank 43 centres of excellence of African higher education (ACE) including ENSEA of Abidjan participate in the 3rd African Centres of Excellence (ACE) Impact and 12th ACE 1 Workshop on capacity building of higher education institutions in Africa.

The official opening of these workshops was made by the representative of the Minister of State for Education of Nigeria in the presence of officials and representatives of the World Bank, the French Development Agency (AFD), the Association of African Universities (AAU), the National Universities Commission of Nigeria as well as the participating ACEs.

ENSEA for its part was represented by :

• Hugues KOUADIO, project coordinator
• Jean Arnaud N’GORAN, Deputy Project Coordinator
• Rosine MOSSO, Monitoring and Evaluation Officer
• Nahoua SORO,  ACE Impact Monitoring and Evaluation Officer
• Yannick LOESSE, Procurement Specialist
• Horléonce APKA, Financial manager
• Hermann BLAFOND, bilingual translator
• Miss Débora OLAPADE, Communication Officer

The objective of these workshops is to provide the participating ACEs, their host institutions and Governments with the necessary tools to ensure timely project effectiveness and sound implementation. In addition, it provides a platform for exchanging information on their respective programmes, results achieved, as well as their prospects for making higher education more relevant to Africa’s development. Furthermore, it assists in building networks and forging partnerships to ensure the successful implementation of the project.

It should be recalled that the first phase (ACE I) was launched in 2014 with 22 centres of excellence in nine (9) countries in West and Central Africa : Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal and Togo. The project aims to promote regional specialization of the participating universities in areas that address specific common regional development challenges. It also aims to build the capacities of these universities to provide high quality training and applied research and to meet the demand for skills needed for Africa’s development.

The second phase (ACE II) was launched in Eastern and Southern Africa with 24 centres in Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.

Building on initial successes, the World Bank and the French Development Agency (AFD), in collaboration with African governments, launched the ACE Impact project in 2018 to strengthen postgraduate training and applied research in existing areas and support new areas critical to Africa’s economic growth.

There are 43 ACEs (25 new and 18 from ACE I); 5 emerging centres; 1 “complementary” centre in social risk management; and 5 High Schools and Top Engineering schools.