Associate Professor Kamndaya said this on Friday, 16 December, 2022 at the end of the Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM) Annual General Meeting (AGM) held in Zimbabwe from 12 to 16 December, 2022.

The 2022 RUFORUM AGM was held under the theme ‘Strengthening Africa’s Agri-Food System in the Post COVID-19 Era: Opportunities and Challenges’.

The MUBAS Head of Deans described the meeting as beneficial to MUBAS leadership as it provided them with a platform to meet and interact with fellow African Universities’ leaders (Vice Chancellors, Deputy Vice Chancellors, Registrars and Deans), scientists, policy makers, development partners, private sector actors, and university students across Africa. The delegates learnt from each other on how to advance university education.

Delegates also got an opportunity to learn and get more information about MUBAS:

“We have established networks with different universities across the region. We also had a pavilion where we had displays and promoted our undergraduate and postgraduate programmes to the delegates at the conference and people of Zimbabwe” explained Kamndaya.

Kamndaya further added that the conference provided platforms for knowledge sharing on how to advance innovations and entrepreneurship among university students and staff, and how to develop funding proposals for projects that seeks to advance universities’ agendas.

During the AGM, MUBAS Vice Chancellor, Associate Professor Nancy Chitera attended a series of meetings with Vice chancellors and side meetings with fellow women Vice Chancellors that focused on the need for continued efforts in order to improve university education in Africa.

Associate Professor Chitera was tasked to issue a vote of thanks on behalf of the 900 visiting delegates. In her Vote of Thanks, Chitera commended the 2022 RUFORUM AGM for demonstrating that Africa is on the rise in advancing university education.

The Vice Chancellor passionately applauded RUFORUM leadership for the steady growth of the forum in the past 18 years which has seen the membership increasing from about 10 to 163 universities from 40 African countries.

The closing ceremony of the AGM saw Malawi Minister of Education Agness NyaLonje giving a key note address in which she called for an increase in effort and practical innovations that can emancipate Africa from its current problems.

“We must find African solutions to African problems, in particular, the food and nutrition problems,” said NyaLonje.

The Malawi Minister of Education added that African Universities need to collectively take control of their situation and that they must engage the youth in research, innovations and entrepreneurship in advancing the universities’ development agenda.

NyaLonje made a call to governments and development partners to support the universities as she observed that African Universities require significant investment for them to become a tool for development of African nations.

RUFORUM is a network of African universities focused on human capacity building and institutional strengthening in agriculture and food systems. The 2022 AGM saw 14 new member universities joining the network.