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| | WACCI in Discussions with USAID |    | | |  The Director of the West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI) based at the University of Ghana, Professor Eric Danquah, has recently welcomed Dr. Julie Howard, Chief Scientist at the Bureau for Food Security and Senior Advisor to the Administrator on Agricultural Research, Extension and Education at the USAID, Washington DC to the WACCI Offices. She was accompanied by Dr. Robert Bertram, Director, Office of Agricultural Research and Policy and Mr. Jerry Glover, International Agriculture Research Advisor, both from the Washington DC office.
The purpose of the visit was to learn about WACCI’s experiences with the Programme for Africa’s Seed Systems (PASS) and about opportunities and constraints to strengthening higher education in Agriculture in Africa.
In brief remarks, Dr Julie Howard said her team had attended a project design workshop in Tamale for the sustainable intensification of the Sudano-Sahelian cereals zone, focusing on Ghana and Mali and were interested in learning about progress on AGRA-PASS projects in the country as well as learning about opportunities and challenges for strengthening higher education in Agriculture in Africa.
Faculty from the College of Agriculture and Consumer Sciences made separate presentations to the team. In his presentation, Professor Ofosu-Anim, Dean of the School of Agriculture called for the need to build and strengthen capacity for graduate studies in the School of Agriculture. He identified Agricultural Extension and Postharvest Technology as areas that needed strengthening and capacity building in the context of food security in Ghana. He also mentioned E-learning as an important area to be developed in the School and addressed the need for the establishment of Plant Health Clinics by the School to solve farmers’ problems.
Professor Kwadwo Ofori, Dean of the School of Graduate Studies walked the team through the drive by the University of Ghana (UG) to strengthen and expand graduate teaching and research. He said that the efforts being made were to enhance the role of the University in providing the requisite manpower and development information for the growth of Ghana and beyond. He commended WACCI for doing a good job, especially in the area of research and development in the sub-region as well as forging a relationship between research institutes and UG supervisors thereby empowering students to link up with colleagues for long-term research association beyond the PhD programme. He noted that through funds provided by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, it has been possible to encourage linkages between UG and other universities towards joint supervision of postgraduate students. Staff from other universities, he said, could also assist with teaching UG graduate courses. Professor Ofori called for similar support from donors to enable WACCI continue with its operations.
In separate remarks, Professor Macarius Yangyuoru and Professor George Aning, Acting. Dean of the School of Veterinary Medicine both, called for the need for linkages which would allow for faculty and student exchanges and strengthen graduate programmes. Professor Aning argued for the split-site mode PhD training in the specialised areas of Veterinary Clinical Sciences, such as Internal Medicine, Surgery and Reproduction of Food Animals. On his part, Professor Macarius Yangyuoru spoke on the need for stronger linkages with the School of Agriculture (SOA) and the School of Veterinary Medicine (SVM) to enhance postgraduate (particularly PhD programmes) research and training at the Centres. He said that Research Fellows have been encouraged to include postgraduate training in their research programmes to enhance the research output of the Centres as well as ease the pressure on the College for undergraduate and postgraduate training facilities and space.
Dr. Christiana Amoatey, Head of the Department of Crop Science, identified Seed Science as an important area which needed strengthening in the area of curriculum review and capacity building. She requested for support for short courses in the US to enhance the teaching of Seed Science in the University. Iowa State University was identified as a strong partner for links in this effort.
 On developments at WACCI. Professor Eric Danquah said that with the admission of the fifth cohort of students, WACCI had exceeded the expectations of AGRA for the first phase of the project.With 44 PhD students, he said WACCI was positioned to contribute to strengthening human capacity in plant breeding in the sub-region. He called for collaboration to synergize efforts of the USAID and AGRA and submitted that sustaining WACCI should be a matter of interest to donors. He said it was the plant breeders who would develop high yielding and resilient varieties of crop plants needed to spark a green revolution in West and Central Africa.
Dr. Julie Howard commended the University for the efforts to attain world class status and said the USAID was in partnership with the World Bank, Ruforum and other partners on a new initiative to strengthen higher education in agriculture in Africa. She intimated that the USAID will open its doors for discussions and will work with AGRA to strengthen the programmes which she said were making an impact in the area of food security in Africa.
Professor Eric Danquah thanked the team for the visit and assured them of the University’s preparedness to work with the USAID to develop not only Ghana but the entire sub-region. He conveyed to them greetings from the Provost of the College of Agriculture and Consumer Sciences, Professor Kwame Offei who could not be present at the meeting. Present at the meeting was Dr. Martin Yeboah, a Plant Breeder at WACCI. | | | | Date Published: 21/01/2012 | | | |   |
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