The enigmatic, infectious disease lurks in waters and marshlands: the bacterial illness Buruli ulcus causes serious ulcers on the skin and has been spreading among Ghana’s rural population. There are no really effective ways of diagnosing and treating the disease – not yet. The German-Ghanaian Centre for Development Studies and Health Research, which opened this June at the University of Ghana in Accra, could provide new findings. The specialist centre unites diverse types of scientific expertise under a single roof: the University of Ghana’s School of Public Health is working together with the Heidelberg University Hospital (Clinical Tropical Medicine section) in the area of health research, and the University of Ghana’s “Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research” (ISSER) is cooperating with Bonn University’s Center for Development Research (ZEF) in the field of development studies.
Accra is one of five new centres of excellence in Africa which are being developed by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) together with universities. And they are being sponsored with funds from the Federal Foreign Office’s “Aktion Afrika” (2.5 million euros per year in 2008 and 2009). The German-Tanzanian Centre of Excellence, which is focusing on law studies, is a cooperation project involving the Faculty of Law at the University of Dar es Salaam, the Institute of African Studies and the Faculty of Law and Economics at the University of Bayreuth. Criminal justice and development research are the main focus of the German-South African Centre of Excellence at the Western Cape University. The collaboration partners at this specialist centre are the Institute of Development Research and Development Policy (IEE) at the Ruhr University in Bochum and the Faculty of Law at the Humboldt University in Berlin. The German-Namibian Centre of Excellence in Windhoek involves the Polytechnic of Namibia and Flensburg College of Advanced Technology who have been consolidating their partnership since 2003. The fifth centre, focusing on economics and microfinance, is scheduled to open in November 2009 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It unites the Université Protestante au Congo (UPC) in Kinshasa and the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management.
By establishing the Centres of Excellence the DAAD aims to promote the development of modern university structures and the training of future executives and managers in Africa. The majority of the evolving centres, which will be networked to produce synergetic effects throughout the continent, offer Masters and PhD programmes, promote research projects and award scholarships. The key concept behind the cooperation is “true partnership at eye level” and will include enterprises such as German and African students working together on a joint research topic.
