ABSTRACT
A plethora of international organizations of tremendous diversity-involved in everything from humanitarian missions to advocacy, from research to development, from opinion making to consultancy-operate in Africa. This chapter focuses on those organizations that have direct relevance to higher education development on the continent. These diverse entities are organized into three main categories. The first group includes two key multilateral agencies: the World Bank and the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The Bank has been involved in numerous higher education issues, including grant making, establishing programs, providing loans, and producing policy documents. UNESCO has also been involved in similar activities, although without comparable influence. The second group comprises national development agencies-largely from rich countries in North America, Europe, and Asia-that engage in direct country-to-country partnerships. Key actors here are the Danish International Development Agency, the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development, the German Agency for Technical Cooperation, the Japan International Cooperation Agency, the Netherlands Organization for International Cooperation in Higher Education (NUFFIC), the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD), the Swedish International Development Agency, and the United States Agency for International Development. The third category is the multitude of institution-to-institution partnerships between African institutions and other counterpart institutions around the world, from the lowest tier institution in a donor country to a “flagship” institution in a “recipient” country. These partnerships are forged either through a grant made by a third party or through the institutions’ own resources. The discussion here will not extend to specific institutional partnerships, although some relevant examples are cited. This chapter analyzes the influence and impact of these multiple partnerships on higher education development in Africa from a host of perspectives. It also provides some arguments around existing modalities espoused by a multitude of players in different playing fields.
