WACCI Endorsed As Lead Agricultural Africa Centre Of Excellence

The UG delegation to the AAU-World Bank ACE Workshop in a pose

Centre leaders and other delegates of the five agricultural Africa Centres of Excellence (ACE) under the Association of African Universities (AAU) - led World Bank (WB) ACE project have unanimously endorsed the West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI) as the front-runner of the World Bank-funded project. They have therefore elected to visit WACCI from August 24 to 27, 2015 for on-site information on best practices in their efforts to develop world class sustainable programmes and curricula.      

The endorsement followed presentations by the Centre Leaders at the 3rd AAU-WB ACE project workshop in Banjul, The Gambia from May 11 - 14, 2015. Professor Eric Yirenkyi Danquah, Centre Leader of the ACE for training Plant Breeders and Seed Scientists, speaking on “Updates at WACCI”, highlighted strategies for strengthening partnerships and attracting quality regional students. He noted that innovation was paramount to the success of the ACEs and encouraged Centre Leaders to dream big in their quest to put their Centres in the forefront of agricultural education in Africa.

Prof. Danquah opined that excellence should be the overarching strategy in all of the activities of the ACEs. He informed the august audience that students and alumni of WACCI from 12 countries have become ambassadors of the programme following quality exposure and are giving visibility to the Centre. He argued that WACCI's status as a semi-autonomous Centre from inception had allowed it to grow in the area of resource mobilization and strategic partnerships and called for African Universities to give the ACEs space to emerge as empires of the future by developing history makers. He informed the participants at the workshop that a recent expert panel review of WACCI had proposed recommendations which if implemented, will position WACCI among the ranks of the top tier institutes, educating the next generation of plant breeding professionals globally. He encouraged the ACEs to open up for international peer review for guidance and international visibility. He added that the expert panel concluded that given WACCI’s evolution, strategic plans for further expansion and record of success to date, WACCI was an institution poised to have a tremendous impact on food security for Africa in the decade ahead and beyond by providing Africans with vital education in Africa to meet regional and global needs.    

Dr. Carl Larsen, Senior Agricultural Education Specialist of the World Bank, Washington DC Office, USA, commended WACCI for the leadership role in plant breeding education in the sub-region and challenged the leadership of the ACEs to strive for even higher standards by securing international accreditation for programmes while putting in place, continuing education training programmes in pedagogy.

The workshop to be hosted by WACCI under the theme "Workshop for Agricultural Education Front-runners: ACEs WACCI Learning Experience" will be attended by six participants from each of five agricultural ACEs namely: ACE in Dryland Agriculture, Bayero University, Kano, Nigeria; ACE for Agricultural Development and Sustainable Environment, Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, Nigeria; ACE for Food Technology and Research, Benue State University, Makurdi, Nigeria; ACE in the Poultry Sciences, University of Lome, Togo and ACE for Training Plant Breeders and Seed Scientists, University of Ghana, Legon, Ghana. Other participants will include stakeholders in the Agricultural sector.       

WACCI delegates at the 3rd AAU-World Bank workshop for the ACE project included: Dr. Daniel Dzidzienyo (Biotechnology Centre), Deputy Centre Leader; Mrs. Jennifer Saint Acquaye, Programme Manager, WACCI and Mr. Kwadwo Afrifa, Finance Officer, WACCI.  Others were Mrs. Angela Awere-Kyere, Head of Procurement, UG; Mr. Sampson Addo (ORID/CBAS, UG), Monitoring and Evaluation Focal Person and Mr. George Asante, (UG Procurement Unit), Procurement Focal Person.

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). The Centre was set up 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 USD 4 million from multiple donors in addition to the initial grant of USD 11 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 www.wacci.edu.gh