[Thought Piece] Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources (LUANAR) – A Regional Centre of Excellence for Capacity building in Agriculture and Natural Sciences

Background of LUANAR

When Malawi attained its independence in 1964, very few Malawian nationals had any training in agriculture, with most agricultural related management positions in Government and the private sector held by expatriate staff. To address this, the Government of Malawi decided to create a College specifically to train Malawians in the field of agriculture. Hence, the inception of Bunda College of Agriculture (BCA) which was one of the constituent Colleges of the University of Malawi. The College was established at the former Bunda Estate of about 1,000 hectares of prime agricultural land.
Initially BCA was administered by the Ministry of Agriculture and governed by a Council. On 26th November 1967, the College was launched as one of the constituent Colleges of the University of Malawi. Bunda College had a student population of 1800 students when it became part of Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources (LUANAR), which was created by an Act of Parliament No.9 of 2011 and operationalized on 1st July 2012.

Growth of LUANAR
LUANAR has made tremendous achievements since its operation. The university has grown from one campus, Bunda, to four campuses namely: Bunda, Natural Resources College, City and Open and Distance Learning. The university has also grown in terms of staffing. Currently, there are 193 academic members of staff of which 125 are males and 68 are females representing 65% and 35% respectively. Out of the 193 academic staff, 100 have PhDs representing 52%, 87 have Masters degree representing 45% and 6 have Bachelors degree representing 3%.  Out of the 100 PhDs, 77 are males and 23 are females representing 77% and 23%, respectively. As of 2022 the University has 6 faculties and 14 academic departments with  9224 students, of whom 6331 are males and 2893 are  females spread across four campuses. Overall, female students represent 31% of the total student population.  LUANAR has and is delivering a number of regional Training Programmes and houses a number of Regional Centres of Excellences.

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