Africa Center of Excellence in Sustainable Use of Insects as Food and Feeds (INSEFOODS)
Projects
Jaramogi Oginga Odinga University of Science and Technology (JOOUST) has established the Africa Center of Excellence in Sustainable Use of Insects as Food and Feeds (INSEFOODS) with funding from the World Bank. INSEFOODS is one of the 24 competitively selected centers at universities in eastern and southern Africa under the World Bank’s Eastern and Southern Africa Higher Education Centers of Excellence Project II (ACE II). The development objective of the ACE II is to strengthen selected eastern and southern African higher education institutions to deliver quality post-graduate education and build collaborative research capacity in the regional priority areas.
The overall objective of INSEFOODS is to achieve long-term food and nutritional security by using insects as a cost-effective, reliable and sustainable source of protein and other nutrients for food and feeds. To achieve this objective, INSEFOODS’ strategy is to develop and offer high quality regional and internationally accredited masters, doctoral and short courses programs in food security with insects for food and feeds as the entry point. The educational programmes involve teaching, research, product development and commercialization besides student and staff exchanges in different disciplines related to insects as food and feeds across Africa.
Purpose
INSEFOODS is established with the purpose of addressing the challenges of sustainable food security using insects as human food and animal feed.
STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES
The Strategic Objectives of the Centre are to:
- Build human resource and infrastructural capacity for research, training and technology development and transfer on insects as food and feed;
- Build sustainable local, regional and international partnerships and networks for research, development and training on insects as food and feed;
- Develop a biodiversity repository of insects for food and feed in the region;
- Develop insect technology incubation and skills transfer hub for teaching and research