WACCI Director Addresses Conference Of Rectors, Vice Chancellors And Presidents Of African Universities (COREVIP)

Prof. Samuel Kwame Offei (left), Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Academic and Student Affairs and Prof. Eric Y. Danquah (right), Director of WACCI at COREVIP 2015

The Director of the West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI), Professor Eric Y. Danquah has lauded the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) for launching plant breeding education programmes at both the masters and doctorate levels in a number of Universities in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).  He was speaking on the topic, “WACCI, University of Ghana: An emerging Centre of Excellence for training plant breeders in Africa” at the plenary session on Emerging Centres of Excellence at the Conference of Rectors, Vice Chancellors and Presidents (COREVIP) in Kigali on Thursday, June 4, 2015.

Professor Danquah, who was invited by the Association of African Universities (AAU), hailed the founding Presidents of the Organization of Africa Unity for the political will to transform Africa soon after independence of their countries.  He said that Ghana’s first President, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, was a leading advocate who had conceived an African continent where the Sahara could be transformed with verdant vegetation through the use of science and technology for agricultural development.  Professor Danquah said that between the mid-1970s and mid-1990s, socio-economic and political events greatly affected the standards of tertiary education and had a negative impact on the research for development agenda of African nations.   He pointed to the food insecurity in Africa today as a direct consequence of lack of investments in agriculture and human capital needed to develop new varieties of the staple crops that feed the people of Africa.  The Director of WACCI said that the need for superior varieties of staple crops with inbuilt resilience against biotic and abiotic stresses was urgent because of changing climates and a convergence of factors including the population growth rate in the region.  He opined that productivity increases of about 60% of current levels were needed for food security by 2050. 

Professor Danquah wondered why African governments could not take a cue from the success stories of the Brazilian Agricultural Development which he said was underpinned by aggressive human capital development.  

Addressing delegates on the establishment, developments and accomplishments of WACCI, Professor Danquah cited six case studies of WACCI alumni who he said are leading plant breeding programmes in the sub-region only two years after graduation.  He said that through the quality plant breeding education programme WACCI offered, they have been equipped with the knowledge and skills required for modern plant breeding, adding that all the past students had become game changers in national breeding programmes in West Africa.  

He added that visionary leadership, shared vision, team work, strategic partnerships and strong collaborations had brought WACCI to its present status as one of the largest plant breeding education PhD programmes in Sub-Saharan African. He shared the recommendations of the 2015 WACCI Review, which concluded that WACCI was poised to have a tremendous impact on food security in the next decade.   He said that the panel was of the view that WACCI could be in the class of top-tier plant breeding education programmes globally if it implemented the recommendations which were well within its capacity in a couple of years.

In conclusion, Professor Danquah called on the leadership of African Universities to give emerging Centres of Excellence the needed boost and flexibility to grow.  He said that WACCI’s status as a semi-autonomous unit in the University of Ghana had allowed it to grow through resource mobilization from multiple donors and strategic partnerships.  In commending the current leadership of the University of Ghana for creating the needed environment for excellence, he acknowledged the significant role played by the immediate past Vice Chancellor of the University of Ghana, Professor C.N.B. Tagoe during whose tenure WACCI was established. 

Professor Samuel Kwame Offei, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Academic and Student Affairs represented the Vice Chancellor of the University of Ghana at COREVIP 2015, which attracted 250 Rectors, Vice Chancellors and Presidents from African Universities.

About WACCI

The West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI) was established in 2007 as a partnership between the University of Ghana and Cornell University, USA with initial funding from the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) to train plant breeders, at the PhD level, with expertise to improve the indigenous crops that feed the people of the sub-region. Since inception, the Centre has enrolled 82 PhD students from 12 African countries and graduated 18 students from two cohorts. The AGRA-funded phase is expected to end in December 2017. The Centre has attracted over USD4 million from multiple donors in addition to the initial grant of USD11 million from AGRA.  Recently, WACCI was selected as one of 19 Africa Centres of Excellence (ACE) by the Association of African Universities to receive 8 million dollars from the World Bank as project support grant.

For more information, visit http://www.wacci.edu.gh

From left: Prof. Eric Y. Danquah, Director, WACCI, Prof George Magoha, Immediate past Vice Chancellor of the University of Nairobi and former President of the AAU, Prof. Goolam Mohamedbhai, former Secretary General of the AAU and Dr. Johnson Ishengoma, University of Dar es Salaam.

Prof. Eric Y. Danquah giving his plenary address at COREVIP 2015