Macarthur in AFRICA

www.macfound.org MACArtHUR AT A GLANCE • MacArthur has invested $234 million in Africa, with nearly IN AFRICA 45 percent of that going to organizations based on the continent. The majority of funding goes to organizations working in Nigeria, but the Foundation has also invested in 18 African nations. • Work focuses on conserving biodiversity in the Albertine Rift and Madagascar, on strengthening universities and human rights organizations in Nigeria, and on reducing maternal mortality and promoting the reproductive rights of young people in Nigeria. • Much of MacArthur’s investment is used to demonstrate the efficiency of new technology and ideas, and to then help grantees build on those proven strategies to obtain greater support from governments and other donors. For example, the Foundation’s funding has helped bring faster Internet access to a dozen African universities in six countries, including six in Nigeria, at one-third the cost paid by most institutions in Africa. CONSERVATION AND SUSTAINABLE research on the biological significance of grantmaking has amounted to approximately DEVELOPMENT Madagascar and the Albertine Rift, and to $15 million over the past five years, and is sustain key conservation training focused in two areas: The Foundation’s conservation and programs at national universities in • the Albertine Rift, including the highland sustainable development program is Madagascar, Uganda and Rwanda. forests of western Uganda, Rwanda, dedicated to conserving biodiversity — Burundi, eastern Democratic Republic the species, ecosystems, and ecological Conservation grantmaking concentrates of the Congo and western Tanzania; processes that make up the web of on selected areas where the Foundation and life — over the long term and to increasing has made the long-term commitment • Madagascar — the coastal and terrestrial understanding of the integral relationship required to generate lasting impacts. ecosystems of this biologically unique between the health of the biosphere Grants are focused in areas that exhibit island. and human well-being. MacArthur high levels of species diversity (the number support in Africa has helped to mobilize of species), endemism (the percentage of Grounded in these geographic focal areas, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) those species found nowhere else), and the Foundation also supports research to work with national leaders to save threat (the degree of endangerment to investigating trade-offs that exist between critical ecosystems, to fund scientific those species). In Africa, conservation human well-being and biodiversity 2 The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation conservation goals and exploring new admissions process, and granted To achieve the greatest impact from its approaches to conservation practice, autonomy to the universities to manage investments in higher education, MacArthur policy, and training that addresses the their own academic, administrative, and joined with other international foundations impacts of climate change. Complementing financial affairs. to form the Partnership for Higher Education the core CSD program in Africa, the in Africa in 2000. The Partnership, which Foundation also supports the Critical MacArthur’s support of Nigerian and now includes the Carnegie Corporation Ecosystems Partnership Fund (CEPF), a Malagasy higher education is based on and the Ford, Rockefeller, Mellon, Kresge, global conservation initiative that includes the belief that robust universities and and Hewlett foundations, has contributed grantmaking activities in five regions intellectual freedom are essential to $300 million for higher education to 50 across the continent: Cape Floristic developing and sustaining healthy, African universities in nine African countries, Region, Eastern Arc and Coastal Forests, economically vibrant, democratic societies. with the majority of MacArthur funding Guinean Forests of West Africa, An investment in universities is an provided to Nigerian universities. The Madagascar, and the Succulent Karoo. investment in the social capital of the Partnership has set itself a goal of country. Since 2000, MacArthur has investing $350 million over 10 years. committed a total of $47 million in support of African universities. Grantmaking is One prime example of the Partnership’s HIGHER EDUCATION INITIATIVE directed to areas of highest priority, as ability to pool resources and encourage identified in conjunction with the universities, innovation and transformation on a large Africa higher education grantmaking is with the objective of reinforcing existing scale is its success in greatly increasing geographically focused in Nigeria and reform efforts while avoiding the duplication the speed of Internet connectivity at Madagascar and includes MacArthur’s of core funding already provided by the Nigerian universities. To address the high participation in the Partnership for Higher government. MacArthur supports projects cost of expanding Internet capacity and Education in Africa. that include: providing greater Internet access in • improving information and communication Africa, the Partnership formed the For African universities, the 20th Century technologies; Bandwidth Consortium with a coalition of has been marked by periods of growth, 19 African institutions of higher education • staff and faculty development; decay, and renewal, shaped by the and the African Virtual University, an political and economic events of the time. • library support (updating and expanding organization dedicated to satellite-based In Nigeria, after independence from electronic and print collections); distance learning in Africa. The following colonial rule in 1960, higher education • upgrading university facilities, with Nigerian universities are currently part of began to experience a small renaissance emphasis on facilities/equipment for the Consortium: University of Ibadan, fueled by considerable investments in scientific research; Obafemi Awolowo University, Ahmadu research and infrastructure and the Bello University, Bayero University, • encouraging collaborations and emergence of strong leaders in the University of Port Harcourt, and University linkages with other universities and the community. Before some newly formed of Jos. Today, the bandwidth consortium private sector; institutions had a chance to establish and is one of the largest Internet service deepen their roots, the civil war, military • strengthening strategic planning; and providers in Africa, supplying competitively rule, and currency devaluation that • building fundraising capacity. priced bandwidth to 39 sites and 19 characterized portions of the 1970s and universities in Africa. 1980s plunged Nigerian higher education MacArthur’s involvement encompasses into serious neglect and deterioration. four of Nigeria’s leading universities: the Further information on the Partnership Since the re-establishment of a democratic University of Ibadan, Bayero University, can be found at www.foundation- government in 1999, Nigerian universities Ahmadu Bello University, and the University partnership.org. have begun to reclaim their position in the of Port Harcourt, and in Madagascar, the academic world. Universities in University of Antananarivo. These Madagascar are following a similar universities were selected for their quality trajectory. Following a period of crisis in the of leadership, innovation, and national early 1990s, a reform program was significance and in the belief that they inaugurated. The government brought will also serve as models for other ballooning student enrollments under universities in Nigeria, Madagascar and control, introduced a more selective Africa as a whole. The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation 3 HUMAN RIGHTS AND an accessible African Court of Human Garment for women experiencing INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE and Peoples’ Rights. Grants are also postpartum hemorrhage. A substantial given to increase the effectiveness of portion of an $11 million grant made to The Foundation’s grantmaking in human the International Criminal Court (ICC) Pathfinder International in September rights and international justice has three through support of human rights 2007 to work on postpartum hemorrhage primary objectives: to strengthen the advocates that monitor Court practices, will be spent in Nigeria. human rights infrastructure through disseminate information, and facilitate support of human rights organizations the interaction of victims with the ICC in To promote the reproductive health and with an international reach; to support countries under investigation. rights of young people, the Foundation local efforts in the countries of Russia, focuses its grantmaking on initiatives that Mexico, and Nigeria; and to promote the implement the federal government’s further development of the international national sexuality education curriculum. justice system. POPULATION AND With Foundation support, NGOs in the six REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH focus states are implementing a sexuality In Nigeria, MacArthur has partnered with education curriculum in selected schools over 30 Nigerian organizations to protect The Foundation’s population and with a total student population of and promote human rights, including both reproductive health grantmaking is approximately two million students. Grants NGOs and the National Human Rights focused in Nigeria, both at the national have been made for the development and Commission. With a total investment of level and in six states: Borno, Cross River, bringing to

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