In the last few days of July 4 to 7, African Administrators of Higher Education of the caliber of Vice-Chancellors, Rectors and Directors of various Centers met face-to-face in Namibia. It was time for the 22nd edition of the Association of African Universities Biennial Conference of Rectors and Vice Chancellors 2023 (aptly tagged COREVIP 2023).
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The theme of the conference was “Advancing Excellence in African Higher Education.” There were also six sub-themes ranging from Doctoral Education; Institutional Differentiation; Partnership/Cooperation and Internationalisation; University-Industry Linkages; Funding and Financing; Role of Intellectual Diaspora. Would you believe that Namibian Student Union members were also given a platform to inform a slim audience about the Higher Institution of their dreams.

I must quickly confess that as a ‘poor reporter’ getting to Windhoek Country Club and Resort Conference Centre, Windhoek, Namibia, the venue of the conference, was a dream that was made possible by the grace of technology. The slight time difference between Namibia and the UK was no deterrence, I still managed to savor most of the virtual delicacies on offer. In short, I monitored this event from my laptop just to be clear.

One important event was termed the “historic launch of the Africa Charter on Transformative Research Collaborations initiative.” It may take a while for organisers of hybrid conferences to realise that the chat box of Zoom harbors nuggets that can be harvested. For instance, as soon as the Charter was presented Dr. Ebrina Sall, the immediate past Executive Secretary of the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa, (CODESRIA) posted these glowing words; “Congratulations Isabella, Puleng and Divine (the three wise scholars who presented the Charter).

In 2005-2006, the Social Science Research Council organised a series of meetings and workshops on international research collaborations, held in the USA, the UK, etc. looking at the issue from different angles. It would be good to look at the report on those meetings. Your presentations, by linking the need to ‘rebalance’ research collaborations to the need to transform the global epistemological order, itself being a condition for the transformation of Africa and the world, have taken the level of the debate to a much higher level.”
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There is no need asking what happened to the series of workshops and lectures but suffice to add that the Social Science Research Council was “uniquely positioned to unite the research, policy, and philanthropic communities in the search for interventions and policies that can better support human well-being on a global scale.” This Charter for transformation of research in Africa driven by African intellectuals may just be the response to the power imbalances and who gets to consume the results of research findings.

Dr. Sall was not done with his adulation; “Right, Isabella: as Samir Amin often reminded us, CODESRIA was set up as a platform for African scholars to engage in independent and audacious thinking about ways of dealing with the problems of the contemporary world. It was never only about Africa.”

Since any change that visits Africa affects the rest of the world. Let us conclude this summary of the conference by attempting a review of the eleven-page electronic version at our disposal.

A long time ago “Charters performed many different functions, and their prevalence at all levels of medieval society attests to the importance this society ascribed to written documentation. They were frequently issued by kings (royal charters are often referred to as diplomas), for whom these documents served such purposes as building alliances with powerful nobles, patronising religious institutions, and settling disruptive quarrels between supporters.” At present Charters have become road maps to a definite mental destination issued by committed intellectuals.

There is no doubt that the Charter was conceptualised and articulated by very highly placed intellectuals and for other intellectuals. A casual reader may be at a loss as to how the present form of social science extractive research differs from this laudable intervention. If external stakeholders read between the lines, it may be obvious that the minds behind the Charter want a new deal and way of conducting research on and about Africa as a continent. They are interested in including alternative (or maybe) oppositional knowledge production sites outside of conventional research centers. It is obvious that the present research system is not appropriate/adequate, and it appears to propagate unfair power imbalances.
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There are suggestions as to how to correct the long-term abnormalities. Since no document can be without flaws, the Charter as a document is not divided into different time dimensions of short-, medium- and long-term expectations. It instead focuses on the disaggregation of stakeholders. It lists research institutions, research funders, research/Higher Education assessments bodies, governments, international science bodies and science publishers. There is no doubt that they covered most of the bases but where are the milestones that can facilitate reformative evaluation.

Another area of interest and a bold one at that is the demand for reciprocity for capacity building between African researchers and those who have hitherto paid the piper and dictated the tune. How the proponents of this Charter intend to operationalise this notion of reciprocal capacity building remains to be seen. To all scholars of power, it should not be difficult to understand or accept that the continent that defines a problem or challenge controls the narratives. Power is hardly given freely on a platter without struggle. While searching for the history of conferences in general, someone directed my attention to Michel-Rolph Trouillot’s Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History “a meditation on the characteristics of power and how it influences the creation and recording of histories.” To buttress Trouillot’s point I recalled a Yoruba saying where, elders enjoin that a child must not ask what made his father an ancestor until that child has an implement of self-defense and attack.

If I ever have the ears of the authors of this Charter, my first concern would be how to construct a “functional step-down transformer” meaning a systematic communication plan to move from Vice-Chancellors to their Heads of departments and finally to individual professors, instructors, and graduate students. I am aware that the proponents of the Charter are made up of listening intellectuals. I say this because whilst the Rectors and Vice-Chancellors lined up to endorse the Charter someone raised the issue of why the administrators were signing a document they were yet to read and digest. A response by one of those in charge indicated that “I hear your note of caution on the subject of de- endorsement/buyer’s remorse, but those who have not fully immersed themselves in the detail can of course withdraw themselves at any time, in the unlikely event of realising they’re not in sympathy with the principles. The signature is not a binding one (at this time; the project may well map out more formal institutional engagement at a later stage).”
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This Charter may be eleven pages long, but any reader would be convinced that much thought and consultation went into its making. Can anyone reading this brief review imagine what it would look like if a Zoom meeting of Directors of Centers for African Studies globally is convened in the nearest future, to obtain their buy in and possible ways of systematically disseminating the content of the Charter.

The day would come when interested parties like my humble self would be allowed to contribute to the design of conferences of this magnitude. My first suggestion would be that each participant reflect on how they intend to disseminate the essence of the conference even before the first paper is presented. The question would be simple; how do you intend to share lessons from the conference with at least ten other institutions or individuals that could not make it?

If my suggestion is taken for granted or dismissed without consideration, I owe it as a responsibility to share my perspectives on the different ideas
Okebukola keeps ringing in my creative mind. He asked if there would be a blueprint for the advancement of excellence in African Higher Education by 2050. When you are merely gazing into a party you wish you were invited to, heed the call of making one’s voice heard in line with Franz Fanon, and Malcom X’s, ‘by any means necessary’. I sent a message through Professor Wisdom Tettey; thus, do we not already have a blueprint for higher Education? Can someone provide Prof with AU’s Agenda 2063? Should Agenda 2063 not be reviewed before starting another journey? As soon as the message was received a response arrived via the channel it was sent. “I had the opportunity to mention your comments to Prof. Okebukola. He said his suggestion was situated within the context of Agenda 2063 and that he was only pushing for an accelerated pace.” I think it was Prof. Olusola Bandele Oyewole, Secretary-General of the Association of African Universities who quickly responded that a committee to be headed by…..yes you guessed right, professor Peter Okebukola, would be set up to produce a blue print for Higher Education from the different zones.

We outsiders to COREVIP 2023’s party, promise to keep a watching brief and monitor if those who talked would also do the walk. Now I understand the often used (and misused) phrase that the world is now a global community of interlinked curious beings.
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