CIWA is a foremost institution of pontifical rights in Africa.

The Catholic Institute of West Africa (CIWA) is a higher Ecclesiastical Institute of the Catholic Church in the West African Sub-region. It was founded in 1981 by the then Association of Episcopal Conference of Anglophone West Africa (AECAWA) for the study of theology and related disciplines in the socio-cultural context of West Africa. The Institute took off on the 8th of December 1981 at Ozuoba in Port Harcourt, Nigeria in a house formerly used by Jesuit Priests as a Retreat Centre. Its present proprietor is the RECOWA/CERAO.