ACE-CEFOR, was one of the 17 Nigeria ACE Impact centers that participated in the 7th ACE Impact Workshop which took place in Cotonou, Benin Republic in June 2022. Workshop activities for the Centre began on June 8, with a virtual Pre-Workshop Country Roundtable for the Nigerian ACEs. The workshop continued on Monday June 13, with the ACE Project Steering Committee (PSC) meetings. On Tuesday, June 14, the workshop kicked off officially with an Opening Ceremony, highlights of which include a welcome address by Prof. Olusola Bandele, Secretary-General, Association of African Universities (AAU); Opening Remarks by Mr. Jérôme Bertrand-Hardy, Cotonou Director, French Development Agency (AFD) and Mr. Atou Seck, Country Manager, Benin Republic, World Bank (WB). The Workshop was formally launched by Madame Eléonore Yayi Ladékan, Minister of Education, Benin Republic.
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The workshop had 9 plenary sessions covering Project Updates; Development Impact; Entrepreneurship and Innovation; Gender; Digital Transformation (CCODE, IT Recommendations, DLR 7.4); Verification; Report Back from the Thematic Breakout Sessions (STEM, Education, Agriculture, Health); Regional Networks and the Official Closing of Ceremonies. There were also 4 parallel sessions covering various Disbursement Linked Indicators (DLIs) including DLIs 2 (Development Impact); 4.3 (Teaching & Research Infrastructure); 7.4 (PASET Regional Benchmarking Participation) and the overall DLI 7 (Institutional Impact). Other parallel sessions treated Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E); Fiduciary and Aide Memoire. Performance Clinics for one-on-one, interactive discussions covering these areas also took place during the Workshop. ACE-CEFOR was represented by the Vice Chancellor, University of Port Harcourt and Chairman, ACE-CEFOR Steering Committee, Prof. Georgewill Owunari; Centre Leader, Prof. Ogbonna Joel; Deputy Centre Leader, Prof. Ikechukwu Agbagwa and Monitoring & Evaluation Officer, Mr. Uduma Ikpa. The Workshop came to an end on Friday, June 17, 2022.
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