The University of Business and Integrated Development Studies (UBIDS) has hosted the International Alumni Meeting and Conference (AMCO) of the West African Centre for Sustainable Rural Transformation (WAC-SRT), bringing together scholars, institutional leaders and alumni from across West Africa and Germany to evaluate the initiative’s impact and map out its future sustainability.The multi-day conference marks the closing chapter of the centre’s primary funding cycle under the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and the German Federal Foreign Office, which concludes between 2026 and 2027.Officially declaring the conference open at the UBIDS campus in Wa, the Vice-Chancellor of UBIDS and Project Lead for WAC-SRT, Prof. Emmanuel Kanchebe Derbile, revealed that the centre played a foundational role in the operational take-off of UBIDS when the university gained autonomy.“We became a university in 2019 by law, and by May 2020 we had started operations with the constitution of the first-ever Governing Council,” Prof. Derbile stated. “The central administration and many other critical functions or units of this university were supported by the West African Centre for Sustainable Rural Transformation. Many of you may not know that the operations of the central administration for this university started from this centre.”Prof. Derbile highlighted that WAC-SRT was launched on the campus on June 26, 2019, when the institution was still operating as a satellite campus under the University for Development Studies (UDS). He noted that the initiative paved the way for internationalisation in Wa, attracting international postgraduate students from across the sub-region and expanding into cross-border collaborations.To preserve the gains made, Prof. Derbile announced that UBIDS is repositioning the centre within the university’s broader research and grants infrastructure.“We are working to reposition the West African Centre for Sustainable Rural Transformation here at UBIDS as one of the strongest parts of the grantsmanship infrastructure. We are in the process of establishing a Grants Office that would support grantsmanship-related activities, and WAC-SRT comes in handy as part of that infrastructure,” Prof. Derbile noted.He also acknowledged the appointment of Dr. Rudolf Nabogu to the Grants Office and the leadership of the Director of Research, Prof. Frederick Dayour, alongside the WAC-SRT UBIDS Director, Dr. George Dery.Delivering his address, Dr. George Dery underscored that the real impact of the centre extends far beyond the completion of certificates.“WAC-SRT represents much more than a project implemented by a group of institutions. It represents a sustained commitment to building human capacity, strengthening institutions, and generating knowledge for sustainable rural transformation,” Dr. Dery said.“The true value of scholarship cannot be measured only by the number of students supported or degrees completed. Where does the knowledge go? Who benefits from it? What institutions are strengthened?”The Project Coordinator of WAC-SRT and Senior Researcher at the Center for Development Research (ZEF), University of Bonn, Dr. Wolfram Laube, recalled the early stages of establishing the partnership between Anglophone and Francophone institutions, which initially faced mutual scepticism before developing into lasting trust and academic diplomacy.“Beyond the knowledge, beyond the development capacities you may create, there is also this social aspect of collaborating. Meeting each other in person, spending time with each other, seeing each other’s flaws, and seeing each other’s successes is something which I found very valuable in this project,” Dr. Laube remarked.He cautioned that North-South collaborations must remain genuine people-to-people exchanges rather than mere transactions of development assistance.Speaking on behalf of the DAAD Country Director, Ms. Lena Leumer, the Senior Programme Officer at the DAAD Regional Office in Accra, Felix Barnes, assured stakeholders that cooperation would continue through other funding mechanisms.“Funding will be completed by close of 2026/2027, but it’s really the hope that there will be sustainability,” Mr. Barnes noted. “DAAD will not stop there, because there are other avenues of funding that could come in, such as in-country and in-region scholarships. The alumni are certainly our greatest legacy.”Highlighting the programme milestones achieved at the partner campus in Niger, the Academic Assistant of WAC-SRT at Abdou Moumouni University of Niamey (UAM), Dr. Karimoun Massalatchi Illyassou, speaking on behalf of the Dean of the Faculty of Sciences and Techniques, Prof. Bakasso Yacoubou, detailed the cross-border footprint of the initiative.According to Dr. Massalatchi, the centre established the Integrated Master Programme in Sustainable Rural Transformation (EIMP-SRT) in 2018, training eight Master’s cohorts and two PhD cohorts between 2018 and 2026 across engineering and policy tracks. The cohorts comprise students from Niger, Ghana, Mali, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast and Sierra Leone.Adding his voice, the WAC-SRT Coordinator at UDS, Prof. Isaac G.K. Ansah, paid tribute to the four founding architects of the centre: Dr. Wolfram Laube, Prof. Emmanuel Derbile, Prof. Rabani Adamou and Prof. Michael Kpalo, now Deputy CEO of Operations at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).Prof. Ansah challenged the alumni body to maintain active and productive networks.“Let not our alumni network be a WhatsApp group where, on Friday nights, when we are tired, we just send messages. Let’s be an important asset that you can leverage to establish very good relationships that can materialize in the future.”The conference continues with research presentations and gallery walks demonstrating community-level action research interventions across beneficiary West African states.