The Africa Higher Education for Transformation Prize recognises Muni’s work creating pathways from education to employment for refugees and underserved young people through RETI.
Muni University received the prize at the Africa Higher Education Transformation Convening in Accra, Ghana, on 22 September 2026. It was recognised in the Transitions to Employment category alongside Addis Ababa University, the International Institute for Water and Environmental Engineering (2iE) in Burkina Faso, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Ghana, and the University of Rwanda.
Through the Refugee and Host Community Youth Empowerment and Transformation Initiative (RETI), Muni and its consortium partners had, by June 2026, skilled 67,347 young people, of whom 40,275 are now employed — 25,834 women and 14,441 men, 22,798 refugees and 17,477 from host communities, and 1,098 youth with disabilities.
Our university should not be an ivory tower, but rather its knowledge must reach and transform the communities it was created to serve.
Receiving the prize, the Vice Chancellor said the achievement belonged to the University’s young people, staff and students, the RETI consortium partners and the Government of Uganda, and thanked the Mastercard Foundation “for believing that African universities can be powerful engines for transformation”. The University’s next chapter, he said, is to institutionalise its “learning to earning” model, strengthen market-responsive education, entrepreneurship and innovation, and generate evidence for higher education transformation across Africa.
He was accompanied by Dr. Kedrace Turyagyenda, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Education and Sports, and Assoc. Prof. Clement Okia, coordinator of the RETI consortium.
The AHEFT Prize is backed by a US$500 million, ten-year commitment from the Mastercard Foundation to recognise at least 150 African institutions. Each of the five inaugural laureates receives US$3 million to scale up its work.
