Juma’s (2007) examination of an initiative that integrates engineering education is only one of many initiatives in place throughout Africa, although most are limited to foundational promotion. An important initiative that was approved as recently as July 2007 for a six-year period is the Niger Basin Water Resources Development and Sustainable Ecosystems Management Project (2007). As with many of the initiatives worldwide, the first component of the initiative is devoted to “institutional strengthening and capacity building,” specifically in and between the Niger Basin Authority and existing water management entities within the existing national and regional governments (2007, para. 4). The second component then focuses on “rehabilitating and upgrading the existing large water infrastructure” (para. 5), specifically the Kainji and Jebba dams and power plants. An integral aspect continues the focus on capacity by assessing optimization and management options for those structures. Finally, the third component focuses on “sustainable management of selected degraded ecosystems and rehabilitation of small water infrastructure” (2007, para. 7). Similar Global Environmental Projects are underway throughout Africa; while the initiatives do not specifically incorporate science education, they develop the infrastructure to accommodate learning environments.

An anticipated project is Tanzania’s Science, Technology and Higher Education Reform Program (2007), with the broad outcome of “education for the knowledge economy” (para.1), focusing exclusively on tertiary education. A similar development initiative already under way in Uganda is the Millennium Science Initiative (2006), the objective of which “is for Ugandan universities and research institutes to produce more and better qualified science and engineering graduates, and higher quality and more relevant research, and for firms to utilize these outputs to improve productivity for the sake of enhancing Science and Technology-led (S&T) growth” (para. 2). What neither project does is combine distance technologies with science education, although their efforts are foundational for potential distance education and complements the distance learning initiatives in Mauritania and Burkina Faso. These two projects are similar in that each tests the viability of distance learning in situ, with clear implication that its acceptance is an uncertainty.

Description of Burkina Faso’s Development Learning Center Project (2002) pointedly addresses foundational goals, to determine “its ability in approaching international knowledge, to improve implementation of the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) Bank financed projects, and in the coordination of local training institutions as regards national capacity building policy” (para. 4). Every element of the infrastructure was supplied in the first component, including the laying of electrical and telecommunication lines, and construction of the actual building. In the second component, operating costs for three years were provided on a decreasing basis, to include staff training, development of operational structures and initial program development; the third component included evaluation and measurement. The center opened in June 2006, with its initial programming scheduled for the subsequent fiscal year, pending a request for at least 24 months of additional funding (Status of Projects in Execution FY06, 2006).

Mauritania’s Global Learning Center (2001) has experienced substantially greater success, although goals and objectives were essentially the same. The World Bank’s report, Status of Projects in Execution FY2006, documents success in addressing the needs of multiple educational, government, private and non-government organizations (NGOs). Moreover, “the Center is on good track in view of improving its financial sustainability: by the end of the reporting period, the Center recovered 55% of its operating costs after 30 months of operations and its revenues are increasing” (Status of Projects in Execution FY06, 2006, p. 370). Demand for use of the system is increasing and has led to development of a portal for distance access (Status of Projects in Execution FY06, 2006).