The West Africa Sustainable Engineering Network for Development (WASEND) is made up of the four Colleges of Engineering in West Africa under the Africa Centers of Excellence (ACE) Impact Project, which are:
- College of Engineering, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Ghana
- International Institute of Water and Environmental Engineering (2iE), Burkina Faso
- University of Science Engineering, and Technology (USET), Gambia
- College of Engineering, University of Abomey Calavi, Benin
The ACE Impact Project is a joint initiative of the World Bank and the French Development Agency (AFD) in collaboration with African governments to strengthen postgraduate education and research. WASEND is working to address developmental challenges related to the low human resource capacity in sub-Saharan Africa in science and technology fields. WASEND seeks to address low productivity due to a shortage of high-level skills and limited applied research in priority sectors – energy (generation, transmission, and mini-grids for solar energy) and information and communication technology (ICT).
WASEND has received a grant of One Hundred Thousand US Dollars as seed funding from the World Bank to build on the synergies of the ACEs to make a meaningful contribution to increasing access to electricity in an efficient, effective, and sustainable manner. Given the generally low rates of electrification in the sub-region, the network will focus on technical, economic and sustainability aspects of hybrid renewable energy systems (in stand-alone and mini-grid configurations) for expanding access to energy in the four countries involved. This will make a direct contribution towards the attainment of SDG 7, the goals of the ECOWAS Renewable Energy Policy and the national energy access ambitions.
WASEND provides a great platform for peer learning through active partnerships among ACE Impact Centres, which is critical for strengthening innovation. Furthermore, the network will support:
- Joint activities to enhance the quality of education through guest lectures.
- Research through joint supervision
- Joint grant acquisition for research
- Joint Capacity building and sector studies for the sub-region
- Increased publications
The network is expected to have far-reaching positive impacts in the individual participating institutions, at the national level and in the subregion. At the participating ACE, the network will lead to the strengthening of existing systems for teaching, learning, research, publications, dissemination of knowledge, and stronger collaboration with industry partners and practitioners.
At the subregion, the experiences from partnerships with industry from the different academic institutions will jointly provide opportunities to develop more focused research to address the needs of the subregion rather than those of individual countries only. There will therefore be improved research uptake resulting in a greater impact of research findings.
The network will also lead to an increase in innovations, through brainstorming and joint projects, to meet the needs of industry in the partner countries and the subregion. The network will also improve opportunities for consultancy services and contract research due to the rich expertise of participating members from the various institutions.