The first priority of the AU-EU High Level Policy Dialogue (HLPD) roadmap on Food Nutrition Security for Sustainable Agriculture (FNSSA) was adopted by the AU-EU Senior Officials Meeting (SOM) in 2016. The implementation of the FNSSA Roadmap is expected to be improved through a ‘Platform’ of an alliance of stakeholders with a long-term and sustainable governance and funding mechanism, an alliance of funders, and a knowledge management and communication system that will inform policy makers and other major FNSSA actors. The ‘Platform’ being established as an International Research Consortium (IRC) model, is currently underway in the European Union Horizon 2020 Coordination & Support Action (CSA) project - The Long Term European African Partnership for Food Nutrition Security for Sustainable Agriculture (LEAP4FNSSA) in line with the decisions of its General Assembly and the EC note-to-file, both in 2020.

The Platform is expected to address four specific objectives: (i) Increase the synergies and coherence between actors, research and innovation projects, initiatives and programmes, through the development of institutional alliances and clusters of projects and expertise (ii) Develop a learning environment and a large knowledge base, including monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) activities, creating communication and links between different initiatives to improve STI cooperation (iii) Establish a long term and sustainable coordination infrastructure, governance and funding mechanism (iv) Support to the HLPD Bureau.

The LEAP4FNSSA project started in 2019 and is expected to close in October, 2022. After three and half years of implementation, important achievements have been made that provide the important building blocks for the transformation of the existing EU-AU FNSSA Partnership into a more structured Platform for collaboration (confirmed by the External Project Review in January, 2022). Also, an external independent analysis of the project by a 4-member expert Task Force provided good pointers for establishing a sustainable platform in the form of an International Research Consortium (IRC)

These positive directions from the January Project External Review and the Task Force action plan provided the impetus for the project Steering Committee to launch a transition process of moving from the LEAP4FNSSA project to the IRC Platform in March, 2022. This transition is being undertaken in 5 steps; 1. Developing a transition work plan of the project Grant Agreement activities and strategic IRC related activities for each work package (WP) (to be developed between March -April, 2022) 2. Crafting the IRC structures (to be done between March – September, 2022) 3. Invitation and participation of external Institutions / stakeholders that have declared intention of joining IRC in the crafting of the IRC document (between May -September, 2022). Currently, 180 Research and Innovation institutions have declared their interest to join the IRC Platform. 4. Implementing specific WP activities to close LEAP4FNSSA project including the final write shop, final General Assembly and the founding Launch of the IRC (between March – September, 2022) and 5. Final Documentation and Closure (October, 2022).

The crafting of the IRC structures is to be undertaken with full participation of all institutions that have declared their intention to to be members of the IRC. Six working groups have been set up to facilitate the crafting of the IRC structures around the following components; 1. Theory of Change and Impact Pathway, 2. Membership Criteria and Growth Strategy 3. Functions, Services and Value proposition, Vision and Mission statements 4. Governance, Coordination and Clustering mechanism, 5. Communication and Dissemination and 6. Funding and Sustainability Strategy. The IRC crafting process involves a schedule of online sharing of draft versions of the document to receive inputs from prospective member institutions of the IRC Platform in three sessions on 20th May, 11th July and 30th August, before the final writeshop, final General Assembly and IRC Founding Launch planned for 14-16th September, 2022.

Given the current collective effort among LEAP4FNSSA consortium members, work package leaders and co-leaders, task leaders and working groups teams, we look forward to a successful implementation of the Partnership to Platform transition and the founding launch of the IRC.

Nutrition Security

GAIN supports 2022 as the Year of Nutrition for Africa
The African Union and African Heads of State and Governments have designated 2022 as the Year of Nutrition for Africa. We, GAIN’s country leaders in Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Nigeria and Mozambique, applaud this initiative simply because while there has been a lot of progress across Africa, more needs to be done, in particular to secure the investments needed to implement a nutrition action plan that reduces malnutrition across the continent.
(via GAIN - News) | gainhealth.org

Food Security

We must fix food systems to tackle climate change
Food and climate change are often treated as separate issues, but conservative estimates suggest that changing the way we produce and consume food could reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by at least 20 per cent of the cut needed by 2050 to prevent catastrophic climate change. This is a golden opportunity for governments looking to meet commitments made as part of the UN climate change talks, and yet our new analysis reveals that food systems are generally poorly integrated into national climate plans.
(via SciDev.net)

Sustainable agriculture

Africa: Beginning of Positive Transformation
In Africa’s farmlands, a positive transformation has already begun. To increase the productivity of their fields, diversify their crops, improve their nutrition, and build climate resilience, family farmers are increasingly combining modern ideas and scientific research with traditional wisdom. With the addition of digital technologies, more market connections, and increased efficiency along agri-food chains, this change may go much further, especially if the private sector and government policies support the endeavor.
(via African Harvesters| | africanharvesters.com)


Find out more on the Agora!

Source: LEAP4FNSSA Website

The LEAP4FNSSA project, consisting of 35 African and European stakeholders, has been tasked to establish a bi-continental Platform to advance food and nutrition security and sustainable agriculture, in short: the FNSSA Platform.

Who can join the Platform?
Membership of the FNSSA Platform will be open to the broad range of stakeholders involved in Research and Innovation, such as research organisations, funders, policy makers, private sector, and civil society organisations. As such, it will be a multistakeholder partnership.

What kind of Platform?
The Platform will fulfil three main objectives:
 

• Create synergies between the many R&I programmes, initiatives, and actors with the aim of improving the food and nutrition security and sustainability of agriculture in Africa and Europe.

• Reduce the hassle of identifying partners in R&I, finding appropriate funding opportunities, and contributing to relevant policy developments.

• Boost innovation by showcasing solutions that work, supporting creativity and expertise of all stakeholders

• Interact with R&I partners from both Europe and Africa;

• Enhance the impact of R&I investments, and scaling-up through alignment and synergies;

• Gain access to a Database of Projects, tailored information and relevant knowledge, to adapt it and build on it;

• Find the right partner(s), who may have the resources, knowledge and network connections, to take your ideas one step further;

• Increase the visibility of what you are doing and what you are planning to do by connecting to a high-level AU-EU initiative.
   

Source: FARA Africa.

Policy Shifts Required to Improve Gender Inclusivity for African AR4D

1. Build capacity of women and youth for efficient use of technologies, as well as train the next generation of researchers to bring a gender lens to their research.

2. Promote gender-sensitive technologies that meet women’s needs, are labor-saving, cost-effective and simple to operate by non-educated or preliterate women, girls and youth.

3. Prioritize gender-specific needs of men and women by including their interests and taking cognizance of intersections between gender with other identity factors.

4. Initiate and expand gender-responsive policies to go beyond production issues throughout the entire agricultural value chains including agri-finance, agro-processing, agro-allied industry with improved access to inputs and research.

5. Increase availability of and access to gender indicators and sex-disaggregated data which are essential to developing critical actions targeted towards implementing interventions in closing current gender gaps, changing underlying social norms, and addressing structural causes of inequality in food systems.

6. Design, deliver and measure financial products that work for women to achieve gender transformative financial inclusion and close existing gender gaps.

7. Create institutional adjustments for women to participate not only in research but also as leaders in the various governance structures and elements of the value chains.

8. Re-inforce commitments to integrating gender in African AR4D simultaneously with increased budgetary allocations since it is not possible to mainstream gender effectively and sustainably without a gender budget.

9. Shift from the current gender training and/or sensitization approaches to creating gender awareness within organizations, to gender conscientisation and gender consciousness awakening, to unlearning the long-held gender ideologies and stereotypes.

You can find the full report here

Source: FARA Africa.

Policy Shifts Required to Substantially Finance Research and Innovation in Africa
 

1. Strengthen both the private and public sector at the country, sub-regional and continental levels to invest into Agricultural Research and Innovation (ARI); by creating an avenue to bring together the broad stakeholders in the private and public sector to for dialogue on the importance of agricultural research and innovations along the the value chain.

2. Build a strong institutional framework at the continental level with sub-regional hubs and country representatives to enable strong joint African commitments to provide funding for ARI as proposed in the CAADP.

3. Enhance capacities of potential funders and donors in ARI by organizing workshops, fora, colloquium/symposium, and exhibitions

4. Identify and unlock financial resources outside the conventional sources.

5. Develop agricultural investment plans and mobilize investors and investments within and outside Africa to respond to the context of sustainable financing to improve food systems in Africa.

6. Upscaling public-private sector partnership engagements to collectively mobilize and design sustainable financing models

You can find the full report here

Author: Norhan El Dallal (MHESR)

The webinar tackled the topic of strengthening an integrative network through a multi-sectoral approach for food systems sustainable transformation. The discussion revolved around how this transformation requires all stakeholders to play a more dynamic role. An inclusive array of private sector actors, from small holder farmers to micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) and large industries, will be influential in driving this transformation. Another key factor is mobilizing public and private investments to drive food systems transformation through innovative funding and financing.

The main discussion points in the webinar were:

The overall vision of the Strategy for private sector engagement 2021-2025 is for FAO’s private sector engagement to bring about transformative change and innovation, as well as measurable sustainable impact and benefits, to meet our aspiration of Leaving No One Behind through sustainable, inclusive and resilient food systems for Better production, Better nutrition, a Better environment, and a Better life.

Food financing is upholding and maintaining the status quo, finance actors across public and private sectors are not engaged in the conversation, little focus on innovating finance solutions

Connecting isolated youths and giving them access to opportunities. Creating a vibrant network of young leaders working together to innovate and transform African Agriculture.

You can watch the recorded webinar here!

Author: Norhan El Dallal, MHESR

A Multi-stakeholder Platform (MSP) is fundamentally about participatory decision-making and information sharing. Key stakeholders should be represented and decide what issues to focus on and what actions to take.
Multi-stakeholder platforms (MSPs) bring together representatives from different interest groups to discuss shared challenges, opportunities, policy actions and advocacy strategies. They have the potential to tackle complex development challenges and to assist in the scaling up of necessary innovations.

In the realm of agricultural development, MSPs have played a pivotal role in addressing many complex problems around the world. The discussion revolved around how MSPs could enhance the sense of ownership, support developing knowledge, create linkages between different governance levels and a wide variety of actors, and, most significantly, improve policy making.

It tackled the topic of strengthening an integrative network through a multi-sectoral approach for food systems sustainable transformation. A Multi-stakeholder Platform (MSP) is fundamentally about participatory decision-making and information sharing. Key stakeholders should be represented and decide what issues to focus on and what actions to take.

The main discussion points were:

Basic Success factors from MSPs in agriculture include: Increasing and aligned awareness of specific challenges, Strong industry / sectoral ownership and leadership, Common theory of change and framework for transparency, Advocating / influencing with a collective voice, Catalyzing new funding and investment, Adaptive management and shared learning agenda.

The need for MSPs Action-oriented collaboration, Multiple private, public, civil society members, Seeking responses to complex, systemic challenges, Catalysing multiple effects for long-term change, Governance form meant to bring about system change.

We are moving forward ‘From Model to Practice ...’- Virtual African-European Good Morning Stakeholder Forum in February 2022 on the cooperation in Food Systems –
 

LEAP4FNSSA is a co-development process towards an AU-EU Cooperation Platform for Research and Innovation (R&I) and capacity building in the field of Food and Nutrition Security and Sustainable Agriculture (FNSSA). A Platform that we want, requires new ways of cooperation and coordination of different actors in the AU-EU Region. The virtual Good Morning Stakeholder Forum ‘From Model to Practice ...’ was organized on five mornings in February 2022 and with over 300 participants very well visited. It was dedicated to review the results so far and ongoing processes and serve the further discussion on the development of the platform. A big variety of stakeholders have been invited therefore, like funders, decision makers, researchers, innovators and other entrepreneurs and actors front the civil society. The next step in the launching of the Platform in the form of an International Research Consortium (IRC) has been announced, explained and discussed. This included the potential components, that have been developed interactively by stakeholders of the AU-EU Region under the support of the LEAP4FNSSA project.

Good Morning 1, ‘Alliance Building from Model to Practice’, and Good Morning 2, ‘The AU-EU Platform Co- Development’, on 1st and 3rd Feb. 2022 on 3rd Feb. 2022 was focusing on the process in the building of the West Africa-EU Alliance (WAEA) and the North Africa-EU Alliance (NAEA). Based on the Programme and Innovation Management Cycle (PIMC) Metagovernance Model it is intended to establish on the long-run a network of clusters in both regions and certain processes for the cooperation. This envisaged cluster building process and polycentric cluster network should serve the inclusion of actors which remained ‘under the radar’ in the past and an improved coordination of actors’ communication and programme development.

CILSS (Permanent Interstate Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel), which is chairing the working group on the development of a General Theory of Change and Impact Pathways (TCIPS) for the WAEA region, shared the preliminary results of their work on a situation analysis, which is meant as the starting point of the development of a programme cycle. The development of a General Theory of Change and Impact Pathways encompasses also the aspect of data and knowledge management, which is addressed by WASCAL (West African Science Service Centre on Climate Change and Adapted Land Use), in another working group in the WAEA. Furthermore, a communication concept is in preparation by a group of experts, that is chaired by CORAF (Conseil ouest et centre africain pour la recherche et le développement agricoles /West and Central African Council for Agricultural Research and Development. The beginning cluster building process in the private sector in the NAEA Region has been presented as well.

It is intended to mirror these processes in both regions of the WAE and NAEA. During both mornings, approaches have been discussed advising the actors in the Platform’s process for developing an AU-EU Knowledge Management and Communication Framework (KMCF) and a long-term Coordination Infrastructure. Identifying the relevant stakeholders and to describe typical stakeholder dialogues in the context of the communication concept, has been discussed as a very basic need to initiate such a process in the 82 member states of the AU-EU Region. The envisaged Communication Concept and the Theory of Change and Impact Pathways instrument should hence become an institutionalized part of an overall long-term Framework and Coordination Infrastructure for the Platform.
 

Good Morning 3, ‘Linking Research & Practice at Programme Level’, on 8th Feb. 2022, was dedicated to the exchange between and collaboration of innovators, researches and donors. It addressed the question about how dialogue between innovators and donors or researchers could be triggered with a virtual “fair-format, and addressed the design of a guideline for calls for proposals, indicating concepts for the involvement of innovators and accompanying knowledge management into research projects.

Good Morning 4, ‘Knowledge Management and Communication Framework’, on 10th Feb. 2022 started with a presentation of the Knowledge Management Tools produced in LEAP4FNSSA based on previous and ongoing research and innovation FNSSA-related projects. A comprehensive project database found at the project’s website and the Knowledge ExtractOr Pipeline System for more visual and advanced finding illustrations has been introduced. In a virtual mingle session different kind of stakeholders discussing and working within a common purpose/theme have been brought together to raise the question about how to use these knowledge management tools in a practical and meaningful way by the different stakeholders, and what kind of synergies towards a common goal can be expected, and how to work together with these.
 

The final Good Morning 5, ‘Future AU-EU Funders’ Collaboration’, of the Forum, on 15 Feb. 2022 was dedicated to the discussion on how to sustain an R&I funders’ collaboration and network within the frame of the AU-EU Partnership. The main session has been designed and moderated by the LEAP-Agri project (WP6), and addressed exclusively African and European Ministries and funding institutions e.g. from the ERAfrica Initiative, LEAP-Agri, FOSC, BELMONT Forum, JPI-FACCE and new funding institutions who want to join the process. Donors are invited to participate in future joint FNSSA research and innovation within the frame of the AU-EU Partnership. This FNSSA collaboration may be implemented by using two instruments. 1) Joint and pooled funding, as e.g. experienced in ERA-NETs and 2) The launching of a platform to facilitate joint research and innovation. The setting up of the platform is facilitated by a concept to launch sub regional alliances, who along the logic of a framework develop an R&I agenda as a part of a Theory of Change and Impact Pathway approach.

The funding partners in research and innovation and capacity building, not only in the LEAP-Agri project, will start searching for sustainable concepts to secure the donor collaboration within the AU-EU Partnership. The discussion on future perspectives for collaboration was be opened by a keynote on chances and challenges of joint funding within an African-European network. The present LEAP-Agri project has successfully launched a joint call for FNSSA research and must now ask the crucial question, whether partners would like to cooperate within the frame of a donor network in future. The follow-up process to this Good Morning funders session is still ongoing and will feed into the Platform’s process.

You want to join the Process and become a part of the AU-EU Cooperation Platform? ...

This online event will focus on the process of launching the platform and integrating the stakeholders who have already expressed their interests in joining the International Research Consortium (IRC) as well as invite new potential participants.

The webinar will be divided into two main sections:

International Research Consortium: What, Why and How?

the first section will present the strategy for launching the IRC including the ToC, the governance, the services, etc. and will be discussed by the LEAP4FNSSA consortium;

An enabling environment to launch the IRC: Existing Networks as Best Practices

the second section will bring speakers from previous events who are familiar with the project and the platform and who have experience in being part of a similar network or initiatives to present ways of linking the proposed IRC to already existing systems.

A diversity of best practices will be presented from different stakeholder groups (particularly innovators, funders, and research institutions).

Representatives of different networks, presented as best practices, will discuss, and share ideas about the IRC process and development.

Register to the Webinar here.

Over the last three and half years, the LEAP4FNSSA actors have been working towards the achievement of the project’s main objectives and the launching of the International Research Consortium (IRC) as the long term bi- continental Platform for research and innovation.

The LEAP4FNSSA project is now in its last year of execution and two pivotal events have been planned to conclude the project;

A final write-shop involving all institutions that have declared their interest to be members of the IRC. This write-shop will culminate in the ‘Founding Launch of the IRC’;

A final General Assembly which will bring together the 35 beneficiary institutions for a final ratification of key actions and decisions for the project and on the IRC.

In this regard, we are pleased to invite you to save the date for these two events which will take place in Accra from 14th – 16th September, and also give opportunity to external participants to participate.

The write-shop (14-15 September) will be face-to-face only, but it is possible to join the General Assembly (16 September) online.

Register to join the conversation online.