Collaborative Project will focus on strengthening Food Safety Training in Uganda, East African Community and sub-Saharan Africa.
Makerere University was selected by the Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship Program to host an African Diaspora scholar from the United States to work on a collaborative project of reviewing the Master of Science in Animal Products Processing, Safety and Entrepreneurship (MAPPES) curriculum, training in food safety and mentoring students of COVAB, Makerere University and Iowa State University. Dr. Baluka Sylvia Angubua, a lecturer at COVAB will lead the project, together with Professor Wilson Rumbeiha from Iowa State University, Ames, USA.
In addition to reviewing the MAPPES curriculum, the project will establish research collaborations to foster joint graduate student training and mentoring between Makerere University and Iowa State University. Based on MAPPES curriculum review, the project will develop curricula for Food Safety at Certificate, Degree, MSc and PhD levels. The project will also develop a proposal for a Food Safety Institute at Makerere University and the greater East African Community. In support of graduate training, the project will identify joint research projects in areas of Food Toxicology and Epidemiology of Foodborne Diseases. The project will also produce policy briefs that will be shared with the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries, Ministry of Health and government institutions particularly, the National Food and Drug Authority that is in the offing.
The Makerere University project is one of 59 projects that will pair African Diaspora scholars with higher education institutions in Africa to collaborate on curriculum co-development, research, graduate teaching, training and mentoring activities. Professor Wilson Rumbeiha is one of sixty African Diaspora scholars who have been awarded Fellowships to travel to Africa beginning next month to conduct the projects, which span an impressive range of fields across the arts and humanities, social sciences, education, sciences, technology, engineering and mathematics. The winning projects in this second round of awards were submitted by 47 institutions in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda.