Late last year, the World Bank Group, Clark Atlanta University and five other Historically Black Colleges and Universities forged a partnership linking the schools to researchers and students at universities across Africa.
On Friday afternoon, in a room where the words of Atlanta civil rights activists feature prominently on the walls, World Bank President David Malpass and Clark Atlanta President George French regaled an audience of more than 160 people about how that partnership is bearing fruit.
Joint research efforts are underway between schools in Africa and ones here in the U.S., including partnerships between CAU and African counterparts on cancer and agriculture. The partners are developing new curricula to help tackle extreme poverty.
“We are so happy that you are here to witness something that we have not seen before – the commitment of a president of the World Bank to partner with the HBCU community,” French said inside the Virginia Lacy Jones Exhibition Hall at the Atlanta University Center Woodruff Library. The crowd included Raphael Bostic, the head of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, and Steven Dowd, the former U.S. director of the African Development Bank, as well as and faculty and students from the HBCUs at the Atlanta University Center.
The World Bank, based in Washington, D.C., is an international financial organization funded by member nations that provides loans and other funding to developing nations.
Malpass’ visit comes around seven months after the World Bank signed an agreement to partner with CAU, and the historically Black universities Claflin, Howard, Jackson State, Tennessee State, and Xavier of Louisiana. CAU is the only Atlanta college currently in the partnership and is serving as the official lead institution.
As part of the agreement, the World Bank has linked the six HBCUs with its Africa Centers of Excellence, which aim to support skills development and research across centers at more than 50 universities in 20 countries on the continent.
“Education is a vital part of development,” Malpass told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Much of that will hinge on science, technology, engineering and math, also known as STEM.
“We’re working to have closer collaboration between HBCUs and our Africa programs specifically,” he said. “They can exchange based on STEM skills, based on medical skills, based on agricultural skills.”
Friday’s event was Malpass’ first time speaking at an HBCU in his four years as the World Bank’s leader. Malpass, who is stepping down soon, noted that Atlanta’s concentration of HBCUs makes it a particularly good place to engage for development work.
For French, working with the World Bank represents a seminal relationship for CAU. Last month, French and his counterpart at the University of Lomé in Togo signed a memorandum of understanding between the two schools for faculty and student exchanges, and to collaborate on research like poultry farming.
In March, French also visited the University of Ghana and said CAU will now work with the university on cancer research.
Malpass said the World Bank wants to add more HBCUs to the partnership and facilitate other agreements like the one CAU signed in Lomé.
There is also a curriculum development aspect to the group’s partnership. CAU and the other five HBCUs are adding parts of the international group’s missions of ending extreme poverty and promoting shared prosperity to some of their STEM classes this fall, French said.
And the partnership will bring professional opportunities to the HBCU students. The initial commitment was for the World Bank Group to provide both domestic and international internships and fellowships, which French said are slated to start in fall.
Though Malpass did not give any further details of the projected internships, he did note that HBCU faculty and students participated in the World Bank and International Monetary Fund’s spring meetings in April.
Other parts of the agreement could include distance learning, joint grantsmanship and postdoctoral work and recruitment.
For French, the impact of the World Bank’s partnership extends beyond CAU to the city of Atlanta as a whole.
“For us, it means Atlanta becomes a hub and a catalyst for the growth of international education,” French said. “The World Bank and the world is looking at Atlanta. Everyone is looking at Atlanta right now.”
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