Ivory Coast Ministry of Agriculture, Human Resource Development Project
The government of the Ivory Coast called on University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in the early 1980s to assist them with training of ministry of agriculture staff in intensive advanced degree programs in order to build credibility of U.S. master's degree programs.
Through this project, 56 ministry employees were brought to approximately 20 U.S. universities to complete degrees in animal science, forestry, statistics, economics, food science, and agronomy. All were first enrolled in the University of Illinois semester-long Intensive English Institute before beginning their degree programs.