CAAST-Net Plus annual meeting

17-19 June 2014. Lisbon, Portugal. CAAST-Net Plus annual meeting. Project partners and invited stakeholders gathered for their second annual meeting of the CAAST-Net Plus project.

CAAST-Net Plus is a network of 25 partner organisations from all over Europe and sub-Saharan Africa. CAAST-Net Plus actions rely on bi-regional dialogue among stakeholders for gathering informed opinion and experience about the bi-regional cooperation process, formulating and disseminating it in such a way as to be admissible to the formal bi-regional Science Technology and Innovation (STI) policy dialogue process and to programme owners.

The Work Package on Africa-Europe STI cooperation on the food security global challenge has following objectives:

1. Assess the impact of Africa-Europe collaborative research on joint food security priorities;
2. Contribute to bridging the public-private sector gap for the dissemination and exploitation of food security research results;
3. Foster a Europe-Africa multi-actor platform which promotes synergies and coordination of programming and/or policy approaches within and between EU and AU MS for addressing researchable joint food security priorities;
4. Enhancing the framework conditions for bi-regional S and T cooperation in food security RDI: promoting the sharing of information, knowledge, experiences and good practices; finding innovative solutions for complex issues, establishing a ‘level playing field’ and facilitating the deployment of new products and services

Melissa Plath from Finland, Constantine from 

Greece and George and Masahudu from Ghana

The Work Package on Africa-Europe STI cooperation on the Climate Change global challenge has following objectives:

1. To assess the impact of recent and on-going bi-regional research cooperation on joint climate change
2. priorities, and the extent to which R&D outputs inform policy for more effective impact on climate change outcomes;
3. To examine the framework conditions for bi-regional climate change cooperation, identify barriers and propose solutions with a view to facilitating the translation of R and D outputs into new technologies, goods and services;
4. To explore and propose policy interventions to facilitate the exploitation of bi-regional Rand D outputs by the private sector; and propose mechanisms that make provision for improved responsiveness of R and D actors to the needs and opportunities identified by industry.
5. To encourage the setting up of sustainable, voluntary platforms of collaborating EU MS bilateral research (and capacity building) programmes, coupled with broad consortia of stakeholders, for the coordination of support for joint climate change priorities leading to bi-regional research partnerships.

The Work Package on EU-Africa bi-regional ST&I cooperation on health has following objectives:

1. Assess the impact of bi-regional research cooperation on health priorities, and the extent to which R and D outputs inform policy for more effective impact on health outcomes;
2. Identify specific bi-regional health research priorities, initiatives and instruments, particularly with
3. cross-sectoral relevance, in health related topics in research and innovation which present areas of collaborative research of benefit to both regions.
4. Support and promote synergies between and co-ordination of EU and EU MS/AS programmes and policies for health related research cooperation with Sub-Saharan Africa.
5. Foster the engagement of the private sector (both business and capital); translating R and D outputs into goods and services, improving responsiveness of R and D actors to the needs and opportunities identified by industry; and identifying / promote cooperation on key framework conditions which impact upon private sector co-operation.

A report of this meeting will be available on the CAAST-net plus website. 

Related:

An Impact Study on EU-Africa Food Security Research was launched by CAAST-Net Plus in May to assess the impact of research cooperation between Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa on food and nutrition security.

• The survey targetted both European and African respondents that have participated in bilateral programmes or projects funded by the European Commission, European Union member states, or national governments.
• It asked how programming has benefitted their organisations as well as how support has impacted food and nutrition security. It also aims to assess the extent to which programme results have been adopted by industry, government or civil society stakeholders.
• The results (forthcoming) of the survey will seek to inform both formal and informal EU-Africa food and nutrition security policy dialogue processes.
• The Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation, a CAAST-Net Plus partner, is conducting the research.

“The research is necessary to understand where future investments and partnerships should focus their efforts for addressing this global challenge, and to determine the mechanisms for increasing the impact of future S&T collaboration,” says the Technical Centre’s Senior Programme Coordinator, Judith Ann Francis.