The Minister of Education, Madalitso Kambauwa Wirima on Monday, 28th October 2024, officially opened the Technical and Advisory Meeting(TAM) of the African Centers of Excellence (ACE II) Project. The Africa Centres of Excellence (ACE) is a series of World Bank-funded projects, through loans and grants, that aim at building the capacity of Africa’s higher education institutions in priority areas of the economy including Agriculture, Health, Industry, Education, among others. The focus is on postgraduate education and applied research that address critical gaps in human capital and innovation in science and technology.

The first phase of the project (ACE I) was launched in 2014 in West and Central Africa, while the second phase (ACE II) was launched in 2016 in Eastern and Southern Africa. This phase was extended in 2022 when the World Bank gave additional funding to Malawi and Mozambique on request from His Excellency Dr. Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera, President of the Republic of Malawi. Under this project Malawi has established six(6) ACEs - three(3) at LUANAR and one(1) each at KUHeS, MZUNI and UNIMA as follows:

1. Aquaculture and Fisheries Science Center of Excellence (AQUAFISH) at LUANAR;
2. African Centre of Excellence in Agricultural Policy Analysis (APA) at LUANAR;
3. Centre of Excellence in Transformative Agriculture Commercialization and Entrepreneurship (TACE)
4. African Centre of Excellence in Public Health and Herbal Medicine (ACEPHEM) at KUHeS;
5. African Centre of Excellence in Underutilized and Neglected Biodiversity (ACENUB) at MZUNI; and
6. Centre for Resilient Agri-food Systems (CRAFS) at UNIMA.

Every year, the Inter-University Council for East and Southern Africa (IUCEA) who are the project's Regional Facilitation Unit (RFU) organize TAM meetings rotated in the host countries to review the ACE II project and identify strategies to enhance project performance and impact. TAM was last held in Malawi in 2019.

TAM will run for three days from 28th to 30th October, 2024.

The high level meeting has drawn participants from Uganda, Kenya, Mozambique, Mauritius, USA, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe, just to mention but a few.