The Congo Basin Institute is a joint initiative of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture and UCLA. IITA and UCLA are leading a multi-institutional initiative to develop the Congo Basin Institute to be a model for how universities, NGOs, and private businesses can partner in international development.
Higher education in Central Africa faces numerous challenges. Local knowledge is not leveraged. Limited resources and available infrastructure mean some of the best and brightest students leave their home countries to study or work abroad and then remain there—a “brain drain” that means those best skilled to solve the region’s problems are not in the region.
Our approach is different: Build a center of scientific excellence in Central Africa— generating research that decision makers can use to address sub-Saharan Africa’s environmental and development challenges.
Expanding on the existing resources and infrastructure of the IITA campus, the Congo Basin Institute (CBI) serves as a regional nexus for interdisciplinary research, education, training, and technology development focused on critical issues facing the Congo Basin with implications for both the developing and developed world: climate change, water and food security, biodiversity, and human and animal health.
Visit https://www.cbi.ucla.edu/ to learn more!