The Center for Bioethics and Research (CBR) which now includes the West African Bioethics Training Program (WAB) was established in 2004 through a grant from the Fogarty International Center (FIC) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), with overarching goal of buiding bioethics capacity in West Africa.It does this by combining modern bioethics with exploration of the religious, socio-cultural, and colonial heritage of West Africa and uses the result to engage in bioethical inquiry and contribute to the global discourse on bioethics.

The practical avenues to achieve this are through promoting awareness in bioethics within the health research community, offering postgraduate training in bioethics and providing training and support to research ethics committees in West Africa.  The establishment of the Bioethics program was led by Professor Clement Adebamowo, who galvanized the nascent bioethics community in Nigeria to take advantage of emerging global opportunities in bioethics. The program was established in response to a variety of developments in biomedical research and bioethics locally and internationally.  The program started with a cross sectional survey of biomedical researchers in West Africa to document the need for training, advocacy and building awareness in research ethics. The respondents were quite enthusiastic about the prospect of such a program and quickly came together to implement it.