Building Partnerships through Shared Knowledge

Higher education in Africa has had a checkered history, smeared with multitude of challenges. While some of these challenges were inherited from the colonial educational setup, others emanated from misguided internal political developments. In addition, Africa’s socio-economic development has been impacted by unfair global economic practices and the forces of “globalization and its discontent”. However, although African governments remain major funders of their institutions, the continent’s educational system in general has enjoyed the benevolent support from bilateral donor funding and multilateral lending regimes. The impacts of these bilateral and multilateral agreements have mixed results. This paper chronologically reviews the role the World Bank (the Bank) in the development of higher education in Sub- Saharan Africa (SSA). The paper utilizes various World Bank documents, selected countries’ policy reviews, and literature on the World Bank’s policy impact studies. The author traces the Bank’s educational initiatives in Africa from the 1960s through the beginning of the 21st century. The author looks at the contradictory World Bank policy initiatives toward SSA and how the World Bank contributed to the derailment and development of Africa’s tertiary education system. The overarching goal of the paper is to provide portraiture of African higher education realities as a backdrop for further analysis and future change