WACREN is the West and Central African Research and Education Network which aims to provide a World-class infrastructure and services for the West and Central African Research and Education community for development.
WACREN is the West and Central African Research and Education Network. Incubation of the regional network started at the Africa Network Operation Group (AfNOG) in 2006, and at the Regional Workshop on Research and Education Networks organized by the Association of African Universities (AAU) in Accra in November 2006.
The need to build organisational and technical capacity within constituent National Research and Education Network (NREN) countries was identified as a requirement for a viable network.
A regional consultative meeting to form a Regional Research and Education Network (RREN) was held in November 2009 as a pre-event to the Open Access Conference in 2009. The AAU was given the mandate to identify a Task Team to coordinate activities of working groups to produce documents for the establishment of the RREN.
Following the meeting of representatives of 11 countries in West Africa and Central Africa (Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cote d'Ivoire, Gabon, Ghana, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Togo) at the call of Research and Education Networking Unit (RENU) of the AAU, the first Board of Directors of WACREN, composed of nine (9 ) members was established. Professor Tiemoman KONE was the first Chair.
WACREN is registered in Accra as a not-for-profit organisation (NPO).
The vision of WACREN is to be a world-class infrastructure and services for the West and Central African Research and Education community, for development.
The WACREN's mission is to build and operate a world-class network infrastructure, develop state of the art services, promote collaboration among national, regional, international research and education communities and build the capacity of the REN community.
The main objectives of WACREN are:
