The Bureau of the EU-Africa High Level Policy Dialogue (HLPD) on Science, Technology and Innovation is organizing a Stakeholder Forum “Implementation of an Africa‐EU  Research and Innovation Partnership on Food and Nutrition Security and Sustainable Agriculture” in Addis Ababa on April 5 and 6, 2016.

The Stakeholder Conference will take place in association with the third meeting of senior officials of the EU-Africa HLPD on April 4-5 and the College-to-College meeting on April 7. It is organized in collaboration with CAAST-Net Plus, RINEA, ProIntenseAfrica, PAEPARD and the ERAfrica Initiative and is hosted by the African Union Commission.

Since the EU-Africa Summit 2014, both sides have worked on the development of a roadmap towards an EU-Africa Research and Innovation Partnership on food and nutrition security and sustainable agriculture. The roadmap includes a research agenda with mutual priorities, short- to medium-term actions towards implementation (2014-2017) and reflections on long-term options for implementation (by 2020 and beyond) of the R&I Partnership. The completed roadmap will be presented to the Senior Officials for endorsement.

The objectives of the Stakeholder Forum are to:

• Foster the engagement of actors across the whole FNSSA value chain, and essential for innovations: government, industry, civil society and research organisations.
• Present the short- to medium- term investments made towards the implementation of the Africa-EU R&I Partnership on FNSSA.
• Explore concrete long-term options for the implementation of the Africa-EU R&I Partnership on FNSSA.

The challenge of ensuring a sufficient, secure, and sustainable supply of food to address global hunger and widening nutritional imbalances is one that must be addressed jointly by actors from different sectors and different regions of the world. European and African governments have agreed to prioritise this challenge at the EU-Africa Summit 2014 Beyond governmental and research actors, several decision makers and actors from the private sector, NGOs, end-users, non-governmental and philanthropic organisations have a fundamental role to play in advancing science, technology, and innovation for addressing food and nutrition security and sustainable agriculture. Organisations participating in this Research and Innovation Partnership have the opportunity to influence the research and innovation agenda on FNSSA and to jointly design and manage its implementation.

More information

The concept note, agenda and other relevant information can be found on the Africa-EU Science and Technology Portal. This portal is being fed with documents on a regular basis.