The Carnegie Corporation of New York has announced that it will invest approximately $30 million over three years in an initiative designed to strengthen sub-Saharan Africa’s next generation of educators and university leaders.

Part of Carnegie’s new grantmaking strategy on the continent, the Investing in Africa’s Next Generation initiative will award grants in three countries — South Africa, Ghana, and Uganda — to bolster postgraduate and research programs in the social sciences, humanities, and natural sciences; support new and existing discipline-based regional research and training networks; create fellowship opportunities for training and retaining academics and researchers throughout sub-Saharan Africa; strengthen leadership and management of senior academics; and promote policy initiatives to sustain higher education reform gains. The corporation’s strategy also will include efforts to support information and communication technologies for research and education while enhancing libraries and access to information
in the region.

The initiative builds on Carnegie’s ten-year, $100 million investment in collaboration with the Partnership for Higher Education in Africa to strengthen higher education on the continent and a ten-year, $20 million investment in a variety of scholarships and fellowships, with the goal of increasing the enrollment and retention of women in higher education, particularly in science and technology programs.

“With the fastest-growing rates of university enrollment in the world and research demonstrating higher education’s positive impact on economic growth, poverty reduction, national health, and governance, Africa’s universities are making an increasingly critical contribution in helping to shape the discussion about the continent’s future,” said Carnegie Corporation president and CEO Vartan Gregorian. “But if Africa’s universities are to be
truly effective in their role as leadership institutions as well as in providing opportunities for students eager for knowledge and success, they must maintain and even expand their cohort of highly trained and qualified professors and academics.”

“Carnegie Corporation Continues Commitment to Supporting Higher Education in Sub-Saharan Africa.” Carnegie Corporation of New York Press Release 12/21/09.

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