The Regional Steering Committee (RSC) members, the Inter-University Council for East Africa (IUCEA) and the World Bank technical team participated in the Regional Steering Committee (RSC) meeting. Likewise, Executive Directors of Commissions for Higher Education, Regional Steering Committee (RSC) members, University Vice-Chancellors, ACE Center Leaders, IUCEA, World Bank technical team, and fiduciary colleagues, and external consultants took part on the 12th Technical and Advisory meeting for the Eastern and Southern Africa Higher Education Centres of Excellence (ACE II).

The main objectives of the Technical and Advisory meeting were to reflect on the development of university-industry partnerships, commercialization of research, setting up academic networks, implementation of environmental and social safeguards, setting up and operationalization of Grievances Redress Mechanisms (GRMs), and sustainability of the established centers of excellence.

During the virtual meeting, Center Leaders, the World Bank, The Inter-University Council for East Africa (IUCEA), and other stakeholders discussed common challenges faced by the ACEs with the view of improving the performance and the quality of project outputs.
On the Aide Memoire that documented the key mission findings and agreements reached, it was indicated that Africa Center of Excellence for Water Management (ACEWM) is among the Centers of Excellences that have achieved progress and have already exceeded their targets in some of their project activities. Over the past few years, ACEWM continued to grow its performance in terms of regional and national student enrolment, Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on partnerships, international accreditation of programs, commercialization of research, and establishment of academic networks.