Country
LUANAR is a University based in Malawi. The University has two main colleges, Bunda College of Agriculture and the Natural Resources College. In order to widen access to higher education in the country, the University has a campus in the city of Lilongwe known as City Campus, which is under Bunda College of Agriculture as well as Open Distance and e-Learning (ODeL) with centres in Blantyre, Lilongwe and Mzuzu.
In a landmark address to the Malawi parliament on 24th May 2010, the third State President of the Republic of Malawi, the late Professor Bingu wa Mutharika shared his vision of establishing six universities in Malawi. This was meant to address the problems of limited University access and to increase the pool of well-trained human resource in the country in order to accelerate the socio-economic development of Malawi. One of the new universities to be established was the Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources (LUANAR) which was to be formed by transforming the then Bunda College of Agriculture into a University with the integration of Natural Resources College (NRC). LUANAR was therefore created through an Act of Parliament No. 22 of 2011 and started its operations on 1st July 2012, with Bunda Campus, as the initial institution until NRC was fully integrated into LUANAR in December 2014. LUANAR aims to advance knowledge and produce relevant graduates with entrepreneurship skills for agricultural growth, food security, wealth creation and sustainable natural resources management, through teaching, training, research, outreach, consultancy and sound management.