The main objectives of Carnegie Corporation’s work in Africa are to enhance the capacities of educators, researchers and academic leaders in selected countries; to improve the use of information and communication technologies in teaching, research and management and to create public and university libraries to deepen academic research and public access to information and knowledge. These goals represent integrated pathways toward strengthening the next generation of academics and university leaders in Africa.

Our new strategy has been developed through reviewing the accomplishments of the previous strategy; consultations within and outside of the Corporation, including with higher education stakeholders in several countries in sub-Saharan Africa and assessing the current higher education needs on the continent. At the same time that we developed this approach and made several initial grants to advance it, we also made final grants to conclude the previous strategy, which had focused on institutional transformation of several leading universities in five African countries through support for academic and administrative infrastructure, staff development and higher education opportunities for women.

Our funding partners in this earlier work have been members of the Partnership for Higher Education in Africa (PHEA) and other private donors, European government agencies and U.S. Government initiatives. The Partnership coordinating office in New York is closed as of January 2010, but collaborative grantmaking in some areas of common interest will continue.

Our future projects will stem from strategic grantmaking in the following areas:

• Investing in Africa’s Next Generation of Academics and University Leaders
• Information and Communication Technologies for Teaching, Learning and Research
• Libraries and Information