The Intra-Africa Academic Mobility Scheme, a joint initiative of the African Union and the European Union, is being implemented under the auspices of the Pan-African Partnership.

The “Continental education strategy for Africa” (CESA 2016-2025) articulates the ambition of the African Union to build an integrated continent through a harmonised education system where intra-African mobility and skills portability are standard.

Furthermore, it calls for a paradigm shift towards transformative education and training systems to meet the knowledge, competencies, skills, research, innovation and creativity required to nurture African core values and promote sustainable development. This demands strategic identification of fields of study for higher education and research, and promotion of mechanisms for intra-african academic collaboration.

Those priorities have also gradually come to the fore in the Africa-EU Partnership in recent years and African and European Heads of States and Governments committed during the 5th Africa-EU Summit of 2017 to further “invest in people” and to support “concrete initiatives in terms of recognition of qualifications, partnerships between institutions and mobility of young students, staff and researchers, in particular women and girls, and foster partnership between institutions, in order to develop and transfer knowledge and technology and to strengthen the ties between the two continents”.

Based on the experience of the Intra-ACP Academic Mobility Scheme (2010-2013), the EU decided to further support mobility of students and staff within Africa through the Intra-Africa Academic Mobility Schemes. Three calls for proposals were thus launched in 2016, 2017 and 2019 and twenty one projects were selected, involving universities from all regions in Africa.

The programme is directly managed by the European Commission through the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA) under the supervision of the Directorate General for International Cooperation and Development and in collaboration with the African Union Commission (AUC) Department for Human Resources, Science and Technology.

Mobility of students and staff between Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) aims to help them acquire stronger knowledge and skills and contribute to improving the quality and relevance of teaching and learning through exchanges of practices.

The scheme also aims to contribute to strengthening the modernisation and internationalisation strategies of HEIs through the establishment of mechanisms to manage mobility flows. This sought in turn to increase HEIs’ capacity to forge partnerships with other institutions and undertake joint collaboration and research.

Furthermore, the programme aims to bring together HEIs from different regions, requiring the setting up of adequate mechanisms to organise the exchanges, such as arrangements to compare curricula and recognise study periods abroad. The programme therefore aimed to enhance harmonisation and standardisation of higher education in line with the African Union Strategy for Harmonisation of Higher Education.

For more information, visit the Intra-Africa Academic Mobility Scheme website on this link :https://www.eacea.ec.europa.eu/grants/2014-2020/intra-africa/intra-africa-academic-mobility-scheme-2020_en