President John Dramani Mahama has hailed the Africa’s Higher Education Centers of Excellence’s (ACE) role in addressing critical challenges facing higher education on the continent.
“The ACE programme has emerged as a model of distinction, fostering innovation, nurturing world-class expertise and strengthening institutional capacities in critical sectors such as health, agriculture, engineering and the applied sciences,” President Mahama stated in his remarks at the opening of the 2025 ACE Forum in Accra
He noted that ACE’s transformative journey was a powerful testament to what could be achieved through collaboration in higher education.
The three-day event on the theme “ACE@10: Celebrating a Decade of Impact and Innovation of Africa Centers of Excellence Programme”, is being co-organized by the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission, the Association of African Universities (AAU), the Inter-University Council for East Africa (IUCEA), with the support of the World Bank and the French Development Agency (AFD).
The Forum will take stock of the transformational journey of the ACEs over the last 10 years (ACE@10), and highlight key successes, research breakthroughs, innovations, and impact.
President Mahama said with over 80 centers across more than 20 countries, the ACE initiative had demonstrated that when nations, institutions and development partners come together, the impact could be exponential.
He said from advancing innovative research in infectious diseases and renewable energy to drive innovation in agriculture and digital technology, ACE had become a beacon of regional integration and cooperation.
He reiterated that its results-based approach linking funding to tangible outcomes had not only elevated academic standards but also driven institutional reforms, attracted global partnerships and expanded opportunities for tens of thousands of postgraduate students across Africa.
“ACE has made universities more relevant to the communities in which they are situated,” the President stated.
He said through shared thematic networks, inter-university mobility and academic industry partnership, the ACE initiative had facilitated joint research, co-created curricula and fostered innovation ecosystems that would have been difficult to build in isolation.
He said by leveraging economies of scale and promoting peer learning, this collaborative framework had enhanced regional capacity while directly responding to national development priorities.
“The ACE journey is a reminder that the future of higher education in Africa and indeed globally does not lie in working alone,” President Mahama said.
“It lies in uniting our efforts to unlock talents, to transfer knowledge and build a resilient, skilled work task force that is ready to drive sustainable development across the African continent.”
The President said Ghana had been privileged to host some of the most impactful centers of excellence under the ACE programme; notably the West African Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI), the West African Centre for Cell Biology of Infectious Pathogens (WACCBIP) and the West African Genetic Medicine Centre (WAGMC), all at the University of Ghana.
The President said WACCI since its establishment had become a key player in enhancing agricultural productivity across the West African region.
He said WACCI focuses on improving crop varieties and empowering local farmers through advanced training in crop improvement and that it had made significant strides in their collective effort to address food security in the sub-region. “The centre has also produced numerous highly trained graduates who are now leaders in agricultural research, positively impacting food systems in Ghana and across the broader West African sub-region.”
He said the prospects for the ACE programme were very bright, and that the demand for research-led solutions, skilled professionals and regionally relevant innovations continues to grow across the continent.
The President said the ACE Centers were uniquely placed to meet this demand, serving as hubs of excellence that could drive socio-economic transformation.
