The Educational Research Network for West and Central Africa (ERNWACA/ROCARE) was established in 1989 in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Currently, ERNWACA manages a wide range of programs and projects in its seventeen member countries.

Conceived at its inception as an informal forum whose key mission was to bring together West and Central African researchers in Education, ERNWACA has progressively become a network bringing together education researchers and practitioners. ERNWACA’s contribution to the construction of a knowledge base on educational research and to its utilization for the improvement of educational practice and evidence-based policies in West and Central Africa has been outstanding. It is now generally acknowledged that ERNWACA has emerged as one of West and Central Africa’s pre-eminent networks for educational research. Undoubtedly, since its founding in 1989, ERNWACA’s collaboration with the Ministries of Education in the region, the donor community, education practitioners and experts and local universities, has fostered the production of knowledge and the use of research data for the betterment of education in Africa.