10 Nigerian varsities get N12.2bn World Bank grants

The successful Nigerian universities are the Federal University of Agriculture Abeokuta for Agricultural Development and Sustainable Environment; Bayero University, Nigeria, for Dryland Agriculture, and Benue State University, Nigeria, for Food Technology and Research.

Others include Redeemer’s University, Nigeria, for Genomics of Infectious Diseases; University of Jos, Nigeria, for Phytomedicine Research and Development; Ahmadu Bello University, Nigeria, for Neglected Tropical Diseases and Forensic Biotechnology; University of Benin, Nigeria, for Reproductive Health and Innovation; African University of Science and Technology, Nigeria, for Materials; University of Port Harcourt, Nigeria, for Oil Field Chemicals and Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria, for Science, Technology and Knowledge.

It will be recalled that over 52 proposals were submitted by participating universities in the West and Central African sub-regions, but only 19 proposals scaled through and out of this 19 approved proposals, Nigeria won 10 centres.

The World Bank has approved $80 million, about N12.2 billion grant, to 10 Nigerian universities that emerged successful in the competition for African Centres of Excellence project.  

This came as the Federal Government, on Thursday, formally launched the African Centres of Excellence (ACE) project, which is designed to address specific areas of common regional specialisation among higher education institutions in the West and Central African sub-regions.

Supervising Minister of Education, Mr Nyesom Wike, who launched the would lead to the realisation of Africa’s potential through its universities.

The ACE project, which is a World Bank-supported initiative, offers African universities opportunity to improve on agriculture, health, science and technology through research, and it hoped to meet the dire of development in the specified areas.

The World Bank is investing about  $129 million in this initiative to promote the creation of ACE and each centre is eligible to receive funds up to $8 million.

According to the World Bank, Nigeria would receive about $80 million (N12.2 billion) for its 10 universities that were successful during the screening processes.