AfDB sanctions US$98.22 million grant for biomedical sciences education in East Africa Education

The African Development Bank Group (AfDB), the Board of Directors sanctioned a loan valued to US$98.22 million to fund the first stage of East Africa’s Centres of Excellence for Skills and Tertiary Education in Biomedical Sciences programme in Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda and Tanzania. The project targets to conduce to the development of suitable and highly experienced team in biomedical sciences to satisfy East African Community (EAC) immediate labour market requirements and support execution of EAC’s ‘free’ labour market protocols.

First stage of the project will assist formation of a network of Centers of Excellence (CoEs) in biomedical sciences and engineering, nephrology and urology in Kenya, oncology in Uganda, cardiovascular in Tanzania and biomedical engineering and e-health in Rwanda.

To provide quality and suitable skills development, research and service delivery, the CoEs will formulate higher education programmes and incorporate with world class institutions in curriculum development, faculty exchange, mentoring, access to resource materials, and execute joint thematic biomedical research and publish it.

The project is likely to improve EAC’s competitiveness by a highly experienced team in biomedical sciences. It will facilitate EAC improve its capacity and competitiveness by extending higher education and functional service delivery that are required by the fast economic development in East Africa.

Among other benefits, the project, which has the capacity to generate jobs for professionals and assist services by medical tourism within the EAC as well as from other African regions, is adjusted to the target countries’ policies and development objectives for suitable skills development for the labour market.

It is also regulated to EAC regional policies on human resources development and the Bank’s East Africa Regional Integration Strategy Paper (RISP) 2011-15. It is also in coordination with Bank’s 2013-2022 Strategy core functional priorities, which consist skills and technology and regional integration as well as special focus on gender and fragile states, among others.

Further, the project is in line with the Bank’s Human Capital Strategy 2014-2018 regarding skills development for competitiveness and jobs. It is based on the strategy’s New Education Model of Africa (NEMA) which targets to face labour market needs-skills mismatch, adopt application of ICT, assist research and regional integration by formation of regional Centers of Excellence.

The regional access in targeting suitable skills development leverages economies of scale and adds up to deepening regional integration.

The second stage of the programme will cover the formation of a Center of Excellence in Burundi on Nutritional Sciences.

The project will straight away benefit the approximate 150 million EAC citizens by economical quality, and accredited biomedical skills and tertiary education institutions and services. The CoEs will produce an opportunity for students from the EAC region, as well as Central Africa who are already training within the EAC, to access high quality postgraduate biomedical sciences education thus improving their availability and employability in the regional labour market.

The CoEs focuses 150 students on postgraduate programmes (140 masters, 10 PhD) further to 300 trainees for short courses in Phase 1. The EAC private sector will also benefit from a qualified and accredited suitable skilled workforce instead of relying on foreign professionals. The project results into direct improvement in quality and affordability of service delivery for EAC citizens seeking kidney, heart and cancer services. Each year, at least 100,000 EAC citizens seek these services overseas.

The Bank’s funding makes up 91.05% of the overall project value estimated at US$107.81 million. The four governments will facilitate counter-financing to the tune of US$8.97 million.