WACCBIP's achievements over the past three years have been noteworthy. Thus we were delighted to host Aquaculture and Fisheries Science Department (AquaFish) from Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources (LUANAR), Malawi. The World Bank approved LUANAR as a Centre of Excellence in Aquaculture and Fisheries Science on 26th May 2016 with funding to the tune of US$6 million.

The 4- member delegation was led by Dr Daud Kassam, Deputy Centre Leader and Principal Investigator of AquaFish. He expressed his excitement to the WACCBIP team and underscored the importance of their visit and interaction. He noted that the main purpose of their visit was to understudy what WACCBIP has achieved so far and “to see how the Centre of Excellence operates on day-to-day basis so we can implement best practice once we start our center in Malawi”.

Dr. Daud Kassam reiterated the similarities in the objectives of Aquafish and WACCBIP to build institutional capacity which will provide quality post-graduate education and build institutional capacity for high quality applied research to address key developmental challenges in Africa.

In welcoming the team, Prof. Gordon Awandare, the Director of WACCBIP, explained to them how far WACCBIP has come in providing advanced training and research excellence in the biomedical sciences.   He noted that WACCBIP has built an extensive partnership network across the world and will strive to maintain and strengthen these partnerships. He also shared the success and challenges of WACCBIP and indicated that teamwork and hard work has been the hallmark of the center. He was also optimistic that the two centers will build stronger ties in the future.

The team later interacted with WACCBIP staff and toured the various laboratories and facilities. The team ended their visit with satisfaction and commended WACCBIP for its laudable initiatives.