Council on African Studies Team Visits West Africa

In 2013 President Salovey announced the launch of the Yale Africa Initiative (YAI) to enhance the breadth and depth of teaching and learning about Africa, to expand partnerships with African institutions, and to focus greater academic scholarship on contemporary African issues, challenges, and opportunities. This Fall, Council on African Studies (CAS) Chair and Head of YAI Cajetan Iheka and CAS Program Director Cristin Siebert joined a delegation that included faculty and staff from the Yale School of Art, the Office of International Affairs, the Yale Alumni Association, and the Development Office that traveled to Ghana, Nigeria, and Côte d’Ivoire in West Africa as part of the university’s ongoing engagement with the region through the YAI.

Over the course of their visit Cajetan Iheka, Cristin Siebert and the rest of the delegation celebrated, shared stories, and networked with well over 150 alumni and friends of Yale at receptions and art events in Accra, Lagos, and Abidjan organized both by representatives of the Yale Alumni Association (YAA) and Yale parents. In addition, they visited artists’ studios/ galleries and arts organizations in Lagos, including Kehinde Wiley’s, and the Yinka Shonibare Foundation, and attended the ART X Lagos opening reception. In Lagos, the team also visited the Tony Elumelu Foundation where they held productive meetings with the leadership. During the trip, Iheka and Siebert also met with the Ghanaian Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta (SOM ‘88), Ivoirian Minister of Education Mariatou Koné, and Minister of Technical Education N’Guessan Koffi, and a delegation at the African Development Bank (ADB) in Abidjan that included Martha Phiri, the Director for Human Capital, Youth and Skills Development. These conversations opened dialogue around how to recruit more African students to campus, including from Francophone countries, internships for Africa focused Yale undergrads at the African Development Bank, as well as how to deepen connections between these organizations and Yale.

Yale already has strong ties to the University of Ghana through such initiatives as SOM’s Global Network for Advanced Management and the Fox International Fellowship graduate exchange program. One of the goals of this trip was to explore further collaborations with universities.  Iheka and Siebert met with their counter parts at the Institute of African Studies (IAS) and discussed several points including partnering with IAS on study abroad programming for undergraduates and co-hosting conferences on the continent. Similarly, they met with colleagues at the University of Lagos’ (UNILAG) Institute of African and Diaspora Studies (IADS). CAS currently supports the annual conference of the Lagos Studies Association at UNILAG every summer, which made the visit even more significant. CAS will consider various possibilities for future collaborations with IADS and to strengthen relationships with other institutions on the continent.

In addition to productive exchanges with colleagues in African universities, Iheka and Siebert appreciated the opportunity to meet with alumni, their family members, and friends of Yale during the trip.