Africa’s higher education is undergoing new developments and transformations with varied impacts on the sector. Several of these are as a result of continental, regional and even national initiatives while others are results of internationalization and other global developments.

In the past few years these developments have impacted on African higher education than ever before. This is demonstrated by the new mobility programs, intra-Africa collaborations, and quality reforms, growth of new research and knowledge networks, regional higher education associations, and collaborative projects amongst others.

It is thus a wake-up moment for internationalization amongst African universities to take advantage of the developments of internationalization to enable its higher education sector serve Africa’s needs and also contribute to global knowledge exchange.

The 9th Conference of the African Network for Internationalization of Education (ANIE) brings together higher education leaders, researchers, practitioners and students to discuss the impacts and implication of these new developments.

The conference also comes when ANIE just clocked ten years of existence and is therefore an important moment to reflect on what these developments mean to the future of internationalization in Africa and what this would mean to internationalization globally.

ANIE has joined together with regional and international partners to present to you a very illuminating conference.

The ANIE Annual Conference has become Africa’s main forum on internationalization of higher education. The conference will debate contemporary trends in internationalization of higher education in Africa, the achievements that have been made over the last one decade, main challenges, and the implications of global internationalization of higher education in Africa. It is also a timely opportunity to reflect on the crucial role of Africa in the global higher education and research landscape.

The conference also ties in with the goals of Africa’s Agenda 2063 and CESA 2016 -2025. Higher education institutions in Africa and their internationalization activities have a crucial role in the realization of these key blue prints that will guide Africa’s growth and development for the coming years.

Based on these continental goals and aspirations, conference reflects on the new roles and societal expectations of African universities, their capacities to meet these roles and the contributions that internationalization could make.

 Further reflections would be on how these new roles and developments in African higher education place African universities in the global higher education landscape. The conference will further debate how internationalization, in its different forms, could support African universities better respond to her realities and the role of Africa in the future global developments in internationalization.

It is thus an opportunity for African and international partners with a focus on international higher education to come together in joint reflections on these pertinent issues and chart a viable path for the future.