WASHINGTON, DC (September 10, 2008) – Higher Education for Development (HED) announces an open competition during fall 2008, to fund up to 20 capacity-building partnership grants of $50,000 each. The awards will support plans for long-term collaborations between African and U.S. higher education institutions. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is providing $1 million for the planning grants.
HED works with the nation's six presidential higher education associations and is collaborating with the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges (NASULGC), the Partnership to Cut Hunger and Poverty in Africa, and others to advance the Africa-U.S. Higher Education Initiative. The competition is designed to build the capacity of African higher education institutions to address regional and/or national development needs. Consistent with HED’s policy of open and fair competition, any accredited U.S. higher education institution will be eligible to apply for collaboration with an African institution.
“The planning grant competition, managed by HED, is a wonderful opportunity to support long term development and collaboration between U.S. and African higher education institutions. These partnerships are vitally important to build capacity and address global development challenges. U.S. colleges and universities should be more engaged in foreign assistance endeavors of this kind.” says HED Board member Terry Hartle, Senior Vice President of Government and Public Affairs for the American Council on Education.
To receive e-mail updates about the Initiative and announcements about the release of the RFA, interested parties are invited to sign up for the Initiative listserv by sending a name, title, university/organization, department, and email address to info@africa-initiative.org.
The Initiative intends to build African higher education institutional capacity for instruction and problem-solving to address regional and national economic development priorities. The focus may be in program areas such as agriculture, environment and natural resources, health, science and technology, engineering, education and teacher training, management, business, and economics.
HED will post the Request for Applications (RFA) for the capacity-building partnership awards in November 2008. The release is timed to incorporate feedback from a 5-week e-consultation, and additional feedback elicited at USAID’s Africa Regional Higher Education Summit on Oct. 21-24, 2008 in Kigali, Rwanda and an African Ministerial Meeting on Higher Education to be held Oct. 27-31, 2008 in Lusaka, Zambia.
The Initiative draws on HED’s decade of experience managing USAID-funded higher education partnerships as a model for international development. The evaluation criteria to select the strongest planning grant applications will be designed from consultations with representatives of African and U.S. higher education communities, USAID, and selected foundations. The competition will draw on HED’s experience in soliciting high quality grant applications from all types of higher education institutions to be evaluated through a peer review system. Members of the Initiative will continue to seek follow-on funding and will encourage private sector support for long-term collaborations between U.S. and African institutions of higher learning.
The Initiative was announced during the two-day Higher Education Summit for Global Development in April 2008 at the U.S. Department of State. The conference drew nearly 300 university presidents, government officials, and corporate and foundation leaders to Washington, DC, from around the globe.
The Initiative has been spearheaded by NASULGC, the nation's oldest higher education association dedicated to supporting excellence in learning, research and engagement for more than 120 years. NASULGC’S member institutions represent 218 of the largest and most active public research institutions, many with long and successful histories of work in international development.
Higher Education for Development (HED) engages the higher education community in the U.S. and abroad for social and economic development through human and institutional capacity building. Since 1997, HED has managed more than 300 higher education partnerships in 60 countries with support from USAID.
HED was founded by the six leading U.S. higher education associations and draws on faculty expertise to address global development challenges. The six associations are the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC), Amercian Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU), Association of American Universities (AAU), American Council on Education (ACE), National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities (NAICU), and National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges (NASULGC). For more information about HED, visit http://www.HEDprogram.org. More information on USAID and its role in economic and humanitarian assistance worldwide over the past 40 years is available online at http://www.USAID.gov.