World Bank lauds WACCI Director for excellent work

By Iddi Yire/Kwamina Tandoh
Accra, May 23, GNA - The World Bank has lauded Professor Eric Danquah, the Director of West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI), University of Ghana, for the excellent organisation of the Africa Centres of Excellence (ACE) meeting in Accra.

Mr Andreas Blom, the World Bank Senior Education Economist/ACE Task Team Leader, said Prof Danquah, who chaired the eighth Project Steering Committee (PSC) meeting and fifth workshop of the ACE in Accra, did a perfect job.

He described the meeting as the best ever to be organised in the history of the ACE project steering committee meetings.

Mr Blom gave the commendation in his closing remarks at the end of the three-day ACE project committee meeting in Accra.

It was attended by 200 participants from all the 22 ACEs from West and Central Africa.

He cautioned staff of the various ACE project centres to guide against corruption and to always pursue team work to ensure the success of the project.

Mr Blom commended the vice chancellors for the various universities for participating in the programme in their numbers as it would go a long way to deepen the ownership of the ACE project.

He said the next project meeting was scheduled for November 15, 2016, in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.

Ms Eunice Yaa Brimsah Ackwerh, the Senior Education Specialist at the Accra Office of the World Bank Office, urged the centres to adhere to good practices such as making information available, admitting students from other countries and providing good auditing reports.

Dr Ouikepe Folarin, the Deputy Centre Leader, African Center of Excellence for Genomics of Infectious Disease, Redeemer's University, Nigeria, praised Prof. Danquah for the excellent organisation of the meeting.

She appealed to the World Bank to ensure that Nigeria's ACE project did not collapse and that though other countries had so far disbursed 20 per cent of their project fund, Nigeria was still at 10 per cent.

Prof. Ndowa Lale, the Vice Chancellor of University of Port Harcourt, Nigeria, said the success of the ACE project would accelerate the growth and development of the African continent.

He said this would depend on good governance practices, the timely release of project funds and the provision of adequate infrastructure to house the centres to facilitate building of the required capacity in science, technology, mathematics and engineering.

The ACE Project, which is being financed by the World Bank through the facilitation of the Association of African Universities, is to promote regional specialisation among participating universities in areas such as science, technology, engineering, mathematics, health and agricultural to address specific and common regional development challenges.

The Bank is making available 150 million dollars for the project with each selected centre entitled to a maximum of eight million dollars.

The distribution of the centres are Ghana, three, Ivory Coast, three, Senegal, two, Nigeria, 10, and Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroun and Togo having one each. The Gambia buys services from the 22 ACEs.

The ACE Centres in Ghana include WACCI and the West Africa Centre for Cell Biology of Infectious Pathogens of the University of Ghana and the Regional Water and Environmental Sanitation Centre at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology.

GNA