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Corporation News
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CARNEGIE
CORPORATION OF NEW YORK ANNOUNCES $4 MILLION IN GRANTS TO TWO WEST
AFRICAN UNIVERSITIEs
UNIVERSITY
OF JOS AND OBAFEMI AWOLOWO UNIVERSITY IN NIGERIA RECEIVE GRANTS
FOR THREE YEARS
PART
OF CARNEGIE CORPORATION’S CONTRIBUTION TO THE FOUNDATION PARTNERSHIP
TO STRENGTHEN AFRICAN UNIVERSITIES: A COALITION OF FOUR U.S. FOUNDATIONS
New
York, NY—June 12, 2003. After three years of work aimed
at strengthening African Universities, the board of trustees of
Carnegie Corporation of New York has decided to begin investments
in higher education in Nigeria with grants to two of the country’s
leading universities: The University of Jos and Obafemi Awolowo
University. Each institution will receive a three-year grant of
$2 million to implement institutional reform and gender equity projects.
The Corporation expects to work with a few other universities to
underscore the importance of higher education in the civic future
of Nigeria, the most populous nation in Africa.
"Higher
education is a fundamental building block in today’s global
society,” says Vartan Gregorian, president of Carnegie Corporation
of New York. “Strong higher education systems are central to
the task of rejuvenating African countries from within. We believe
an investment in the University of Jos and Obafemi Awolowo University
will contribute to creating a vibrant intellectual environment in
Nigeria and will nourish social, political, and economic transformation
in the region.”
“It
is our belief that Nigeria, because of its size and history, can
play a disproportionate role on the continent and its universities
can be engines for change and advancement beyond its borders,”
says Narciso Matos, chair of the Corporation’s International
Development Program.
"There is strong and dedicated leadership at both the University
of Jos and Obafemi Awolowo University, and we believe that with
investments like ours, university leaders can move the institutions
to the next stage—academically and technologically," says
Andrea Johnson, program officer in the International Development
Program at the Corporation. “The will is there to make changes
at both universities, and with our grant we anticipate the institutions
will be able to strengthen selected aspects of their teaching, learning
and research environments as well as address issues of governance,
financial stability and gender equity.”
Obafemi
University, established in 1962, has traditionally been the center
for the study of Nigerian and other African cultures. With a student
population of almost 23,000, taught by an academic staff of about
1,100, the university is one of the largest in West Africa. Having
identified institutional priorities through a strategic planning
process, the university will use the Corporation’s support
to carry out eight projects to improve the capacity for teaching,
research and service, one of which includes the provision of scholarships
to female undergraduates. The university will expand its information
and communications technology infrastructure and build capacity
in technology-assisted teaching. The university’s Center for
Gender and Social Policy will lead the institution’s gender
equity initiative and manage the scholarship program for female
students. The library will create an online catalogue of its resources
and digitize rare holdings. The Faculty of Technology will set up
a computer engineering laboratory to expand professional training
opportunities. Science research capacity will be increased through
improvements to the central science laboratory. A therapeutic drug
monitoring service and a community oral health project will provide
much needed services to the local community and to the country.
And the university’s linkages office will strengthen its ability
to mobilize resources and reach out to universities worldwide.
The University of Jos, established in 1975, having been a campus
of the University of Ibadan, is a “second generation”
university in Nigeria, meaning those that were established during
the oil boom in the mid-1970s. It is therefore a smaller university,
with a student population of about 11,000 and an academic and senior
staff of about 700. The University of Jos is a pioneer in some areas,
particularly information and communications technology. It was also
the first federal university to embrace strategic planning, developing
its first plan in 1998. As part of its strategic development plan,
the university identified six priorities for the institution, which
will be expanded with support from the Corporation. These include
a wide-ranging information and communications technology effort
to strengthen infrastructure, administration, research and teaching;
institutional analysis and policy development and coordination of
a scholarship program for female undergraduates to increase opportunities
for women; partnerships with students to improve student access
to water and to computers and a human resources initiative to build
both academic and administrative staff skills; the establishment
of a development office as part of an effort to diversify the university’s
sources of income; and a phytomedicine research project to highlight
the benefits of interdisciplinary research.
Nigeria
is one of the five countries identified by the Corporation as partners
in its African university-strengthening initiative. As with other
partner countries, the basic strategy has been to identify innovative
universities with effective leadership and invite them to submit
proposals for institutional capacity-building programs that target
priority areas identified by them.
The Partnership to Strengthen African Universities is a four-foundation
collaboration aimed at raising awareness about the importance of
higher education to African development. The partner foundations,
the Ford, Rockefeller and MacArthur foundations and Carnegie Corporation
are working collaboratively on research and communication, while
keeping distinct the individual foundation grantmaking priorities.
The partnership has announced an investment of $100 million in African
Universities during the first five years of its work. Since the
Partnership to Strengthen African Universities was launched in New
York in April 2000, the four foundations have already contributed
an aggregate $62.3 million toward higher education development in
six sub-Saharan countries.
The MacArthur, Rockefeller and Ford foundations have also invested
in universities in Nigeria. MacArthur has a particular interest
in helping improve universities in Nigeria, where the foundation
has an office and has engaged in grantmaking since 1994. National
stability is a key criteria in the Partnership’s decisions
about which countries to invest in. The Corporation expects to do
further work with other Nigerian institutions contingent on continued
growth in civil society there.
Carnegie
Corporation of New York was created by Andrew Carnegie in 1911 to
promote "the advancement and diffusion of knowledge and understanding."
As a grantmaking foundation, the Corporation seeks to carry out
Carnegie's vision of philanthropy, which he said should aim "to
do real and permanent good in the world." The Corporation's
capital fund, originally donated at a value of about $135 million,
had a market value of $1.6 billion on September 30, 2002. The Corporation
awards grants totaling approximately $80 million a year in the areas
of education, international peace and security, international development
and strengthening U.S. democracy.
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