© Dr. Jeffy Mukora

Jeffy Mukora is a QA Expert with more than 10 years’ experience in providing technical assistance on quality assurance and accreditation, strategic planning, and the development of quality improvement initiatives in higher education. In recent years, assignments have particularly focussed on developing quality standards and instruments for quality assessment; providing technical assistance and facilitate enhanced capacity development for the Quality Assurance and Accreditation Council and Internal Quality Assurance Units at higher education institutions in Mozambique; providing technical assistance to a variety of national strategic initiatives including competency based curriculum development, recognition of prior learning, accumulation of credits and transfer system and the development of qualifications frameworks. He holds a BSc, hons in Biological Sciences; MSc by Research in Education and a PhD in Qualifications Framework Development and System of Quality Assurance from Edinburgh University, Scotland. Dr Jeffy Mukora has extensive experience from design, review, implementation and evaluation of higher education programmes both in South Africa and Mozambique. He participated in the HAQAA Training Course on developing a common understanding on QA in Africa. He is a member of the Technical Working Group (TWG) that drafted the African Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ASG-QA). He participated as an African Expert in Kenya and South Sudan using the African Quality Assurance Rating Mechanism (AQRM) organized by the African Union in collaboration with the Association of African Universities (AAU). He participated as a member of the Independent Evaluation Committee that evaluated the World Bank Africa Higher Education Centres of Excellence for Development Impact (ACE IMPACT) proposals and participated in the site visits in Ivory Coast (Côte d’Ivoire) and Niger. He participated as a Chair of a Panel of Experts that evaluated the Zimbabwe Council on Higher Education (ZIMCHE) under the HAQAA Initiative. He has been recently invited by the National Authority of Quality Assurance and Accreditation of Education (NAQAAE) as a member of a highly powered delegation to visit the American University in Cairo (AUC) for a review visit. Dr Mukora is currently the Executive Director responsible for External Assessment at the National Council for Quality Assurance and Accreditation in Higher Education (CNAQ) in Mozambique.

Professor Etienne Ehouan EHILE was the former Director de Cabinet of the Ministery of Health and Public Hygiene in Côte d’Ivoire from March 2010 to July 2011 and former President of the Université d’Abobo-Adjamé, now Université Nangui Abrogoua, Côte d’Ivoire, where he spent two terms of 4 years each (2001-2010), prior to taking office as the Secretary-General of the Association of African Universities (AAU) in August 2011. Professor EHILE is not new to the AAU because he has been an active member of the AAU Governing Board since 2005.
Professor EHILE is an Ivorian National and a renowned physiologist. He graduated from the Faculty of Science at the University of Abidjan in 1974, where he obtained his MPhil degree. He then moved to the University of Aix Marseille III (France) and obtained his Doctorat 3ème Cycle Degree in Neurophysiology with honours in 1978. His research works were conducted at the Neurophysiology Laboratory of National Scientific Research Centre (CNRS), France.
He joined the Université Nationale de Côte d’Ivoire in Abidjan as a lecturer and researcher at the Faculté des Sciences in October 1978. He defended his Thesis of Doctorat d’Etat ès Science in 1985 and was appointed senior lecturer in July1985. He was promoted full professor by the African and Malgashy Council for Higher Education (CAMES) in July1991. Professor EHILE has published more than 50 scientific papers in various regional and international scientific journals from 1978 to 2019.
From 1992 to date, Prof. EHILE has held numerous management and administrative positions including: Chairman of the Conference of Rectors of Francophone Africa and Indian Ocean Universities (CRUFAOCI), from 2005 to 2010; Chairman of the Network for Excellence in Higher Education in West Africa (REESAO), from 2006 to 2010; Chairman of the Scientific and Academic Committee and Board Member of International Institute of Water Engineering and Environment (2iE) of Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso) from 2008 to 2010; Steering Committee Member of ADEA’s working group on Higher Education (WGHE) from 2008 to 2010; Member of General Consultatif Committee of CAMES, from July 2002 to January 2010; and Member of Consultative Council of ‘’Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie’’ (AUF) from July 2009 to date;
In addition, Professor EHILE had also played a prominent role as CAMES and REESAO expert on the LMD (Licence-Master-Doctorate) reform in Francophone countries. Until his appointment as the Secretary General of AAU, Professor EHILE was the Chairman of the National Assessment and Evaluation Committee of Higher Education and Research Institutions (CNEESR) in Côte d’Ivoire

© Dr. Matete Madiba

Mrs. Matete Madiba holds a PhD degree with University of the Western Cape, South Africa.

She is currently appointed Director: Student Affairs at the University of Pretoria. Prior to this appointment, she was Deputy Director in the Department for Education Innovation in the same university and served as Acting Director: Curriculum and Development Support at the Tshwane University of Technology (TUT) before she joined the University of Pretoria’s Department for Education Innovation.

Dr. Madiba participates on the Tuning Africa Project (African Higher Education Harmonization and Tuning Project) as subject specialist and coordinator of the Teacher Education Subject Area Group (SAG). She served as co-editor for the Teacher Education SAG publications and is currently serving on the management team of the Tuning Africa Project.

Her career in higher education has focused on academic and educational development in its broadest sense, including curriculum development, the use of technology in education, student success and student development.

© Deirdre Lennan

Deirdre Lennan has been working for international cooperation in higher education since 1992. She worked for the EU’s Tempus programme with a specific focus first on cooperation with Central and Eastern Europe, the Western Balkans, the Russian Federation and then the Mashrek region (Egypt, Lebanon and Syria in particular).
Since 2009 she follows higher education policy issues with Africa at the European Commission’s Directorate General for Education, Youth, Sport and Culture and is in charge of the Africa-EU harmonisation of higher education initiatives, the new Pilot for Vocational Education and Training mobility project and oversees all Erasmus activities with Africa.
She is also involved in the international dimension of Erasmus+, in particular capacity building in higher education and covers all development related issues for the DG.

Andrée Sursock is Senior Adviser at the European University Association (EUA). She works on higher education policy and is particularly interested in issues related to governance, quality, internationalisation, doctoral education, and student access and success. She has been involved in a wide range of international higher education projects on behalf of the American Council on Education, DAAD, the European Commission, the Higher Education Academy (UK), the French government, IEEP-UNESCO, the Higher Education Authority (Ireland), Quality and Qualifications Ireland and the World Bank. She sits on the board of universities and quality agencies in Europe, Latin America and the Middle East and is the chair of the Quality Board for Icelandic Higher Education.
As EUA’s Deputy Secretary General (2001-2009), she was responsible for EUA’s QA activities and was involved in European QA policy discussions that led to the development of the European Standards and Guidelines (ESG) and the establishment of the European Quality Assurance Register (EQAR). Between 1999 and 2001, she was Head of Development at the Centre for Higher Education Research and Information (CHERI) in the UK. She holds a licence es lettres in philosophy from Université Panthéon-Sorbonne, and a PhD in anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley. She was appointed Chevalier in the French Order of Merit in 2012.

© Dr. Yohannes Woldetensae

Dr. Yohannes Woldetensae is a citizen of Ethiopia and a Senior Education Expert in the Department of Human Resources, Science & Technology Department of the African Union Commission. He is in charge of coordinating the AU higher education initiatives: Nyerere Scholarship Scheme, Intra-Africa Academic Mobility Programme, Harmonisation of Higher Education Programmes, African Quality Rating Mechanism, African Continental Qualification Framework and the Pan-African Quality Assurance and Accreditation Framework. He also supports the implementation of Continental Education Strategy for Africa in the various clusters.

© Stefan Bienefeld

Stefan Bienefeld is Head of Division P3, Development cooperation and trans-regional
programmes in the German Academic Exchange Service. Mr. Bienefeld holds a Master’s Degree in psychology from the University of Bielefeld, Germany. He worked for the German Rectors Conference, the national Association of German universities, as a program manager on issues linked to the Bologna process and as a head of a project dealing with Quality Assurance in Germany and Europe prior to joining DAAD in 2009. In DAAD, he started as head of division 435, responsible for large scale university cooperation programmes between German universities and partner HEIs in developing countries as well as programmes for the worldwide mobility of German university teaching staff.

Since June 2011, he was head of division 43 and in this capacity held the responsibility for all DAAD programmes with funding from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, including financial and strategic issues with the Ministry as well as cooperation with external partners such as GIZ, KfW, UNESCO, the World Bank and civil society organisations. Since January 2015, he is head of division P3 dealing with project funding programmes in development cooperation, alumni, German studies and the German language as well as research mobility.

© Elizabeth Colucci

Elizabeth Colucci is currently a higher education consultant that specialises in strategic partnerships and development cooperation. She presently consults for and advises the Observatory of Relations between the European Union and Latina America (OBREAL- Global Observatory) – based in Barcelona – a membership organisation that serves as a platform between the EU, Latin America and different regions of the world, notably in the higher education and research sector. She has supported the transition of this organisation towards its current global mandate (the organisation is now called the ‘Global Observatory’), profiled around North-South-South multi-lateral cooperation in the higher education, research, audio-visual, employment and local development sectors. For the Global Observatory, Elizabeth coordinates a number of EU supported cooperation projects between Europe, Latin America, Asia and Africa on topics ranging from research management to local development, to quality assurance and accreditation.
Through her previous and current work with the European University Association (EUA), a major stakeholder in the European Higher Education and Research Areas, she has experience both the policy development level in the European Union as well as on the operational level, managing collaborative EU funded service contracts and grants with a wide range of networks and organisations world-wide. At EUA, she served for eight years as a Programme Manager responsible for internationalisation in the Higher Education Policy Unit. Currently, she provides advisory services to EUA and manages a large contract for higher education capacity development in European Neighbourhood/Partner countries. This implies training activities and services in a wide range of fields: quality assurance system development, internationalisation strategies, employment policies, university-industry cooperation, teaching and learning reform and research management, amongst other.
Elizabeth has also previously worked for the Academic Cooperation Association (ACA) in Brussels, the Fulbright Commission and DG EAC of the European Commission, where she served in the unit that conceived the Erasmus Mundus programme. She has both lectured and published on topics related to HE internationalisation, mobility, joint degrees, teaching and learning reform, the Bologna Process, higher education regional integration and e-learning. She also recently led a study commissioned by the Joint Research Centre on open, online learning and migrant/refugee integration.