EU-AU R&I Partnership on FNSSA: investment strategies and measures identification.

EC (2022) EU-AU R&I Partnership on FNSSA: investment strategies and measures identification. #73 p.

This report on the “mapping” of projects pertaining to the EU-AU R&I partnership on FNSSA, identified the most promising research projects from a socio-economic development and innovation standpoint and to document the specific needs that should be addressed for such projects to turn into tangible business and development opportunities.

The objectives of this assessment were threefold:

identifying the top projects of this initiative based on their innovation potential and expected scale up results,
assessing their potential and needs & next steps required for them to scale up,
proposing individually-tailored investment strategies and measures for each of the top projects so they can reap their full potential and reach the marketplace.

Screened research projects

Priority area of sustainable intensification

DualCassava: Dual-resistant cassava for climate resilience, economic development and increased food security of smallholders in eastern and southern Africa (African Union Research Grant II)
Crop and Soil Health Improvement for Sustainable Agricultural Intensification towards Economic Transformation in West Africa (African Union Research Grant II)
UPSCALERS: Upscaling Site-Specific Climate-smart Agriculture and Land use practices to Enhance Regional Production Systems in West-Africa (African Union Research Grant II)
Promote sustainable management of Tuta absoluta, an invasive pest of Solanaceous vegetables for food and nutritional security in East Africa (African Union Research Grant II
PASUSI: Participatory Pathways to Sustainable Intensification. Innovation platforms to integrate leguminous crops and inoculants into small-scale agriculture and local value chains (ERA-NET Cofund, LEAP-Agri)
EcoAfrica: ECOlogical intensification pathways for the future of crop-livestock integration in AFRICAn agriculture (DG INTPA)
MAB Chicken: Marker-assisted breeding of selected native chickens in Mozambique and Uganda (African Union Research Grant II)

Priority area of agriculture and food systems for nutrition,

EatSANE: Education and Training for Sustainable Agriculture and Nutrition in East Africa (ERA-NET Cofund, LEAP-Agri)
Enhancing nutritional quality of plantain food products through improved access to endophyte primed and high pro vitamin A plantain cultivars under integrated soil fertility management practices in Nigeria, Cameroon and Gabon (12) (African Union Research Grant II)

Priority area of cross-cutting issues

SafeFish: Development of bacteriophage cocktails as disease biocontrol agents for improved aquaculture productivity, food and nutrition safety in Ghana and Uganda (African Union Research Grant II)
AFRICA-MILK: Promote ecological intensification and inclusive value chains for sustainable African milk sourcing (ERA-NET Cofund, LEAP-Agri)
SPEAR (Empowering small-scale farmers): towards the SDGs through participative, innovative and sustainable livestock and poultry value chains (ERA-NET Cofund, LEAP-Agri)
Enhancing the nutrition and health of smallholder farmers in East Africa through increased productivity of biofortified common bean and improved postharvest handling . (African Union Research Grant II)

Priority area of expansion and improvement of agricultural markets and trade,

Implementation of Agroforestry Systems in S. Tomé and Príncipe and development of non-wood forest products (NWFP) in Angola and S. Tomé and Príncipe to improve income-generation and food security (African Union Research Grant II)

Extracts:

p. 6 With regards to the needs and next steps, most projects would need additional funding for a successful scale up to occur. Moreover, many projects would need some type of business development support in order to translate the research outputs into economic and entrepreneurial opportunities. Furthermore, some would need assistance in transferring the results to the private sector and/or in managing IP rights.

p. 6 Financial investment strategies were proposed for each project. For most of them, the proposed strategy is a combination of public and private funds. With respect to business development support, many projects would greatly benefit from it and this would increase their probability of successfully scaling up.

p. 6 Nonetheless, coordinators usually do not know about the existence of many public funding programmes and often lack the connections or visibility with private investors.

p. 58 As for all research and innovation programmes, the FNSSA partnership initiative could be somehow considered a “probability game” in which only a fraction of the pool of projects can be expected to arrive to meaningful results immediately at the end of the first cycle of funding.

p. 58 With regards to the innovation environment needed to scale up successful projects and produce a positive impact in African economies and communities, there is still room for improvement. One of the identified obstacles concerns the transfer of the developed technologies to the private sector, a step of paramount importance for valuable outputs to produce a durable social and economic impact.

p. 58 There is a need for more professional institutionalised Technology Transfer Offices (TTOs) are important institutions for the successful transferability of research outputs to entrepreneurs. These institutions allow for a bridge between researchers and the private sector so that technology and outputs can reach the marketplace and generate economic and social value. (...) Similarly, there is a need for better links with business development support institutions and systems. Despite the current business development support ecosystem in Africa not being dissatisfactory, project coordinators often lack connections with it.

p. 24 An example of a regional agricultural TTO is WACCI.
The West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI) is a partnership between the University of Ghana (UG) and Cornell University, USA that was established in June 2007 with funding from the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) at the University of Ghana to train Plant Breeders in Africa working on the improvement of African crops in local environments for farmers in Africa.

p. 58 With regards to the funding environment, the situation is rather encouraging. There are plenty
of public financing programmes, mainly from multilateral institutions and development
agencies, but also from African national governments. The private funding landscape is also
satisfactory, with a developed ecosystem of business angels, venture capitals crowdfunding
platforms and cooperative companies’ schemes. Nonetheless, coordinators repeatedly reported
being unaware of many public funding programmes and often lack the connections with private
investors.

p. 59 We propose the institution of a centralised EU-AU supported platform, that could link and put in contact projects, public and private funders, private companies and incubators, in a simple and effective manner. In this sense, the ‘Boost Africa’ initiative could represent a good starting point to do so. [Boost Africa is a partnership between the African Development Bank and the European Investment Bank to enable and enhance entrepreneurship and innovation across Africa in a commercially viable way, leveraging on a blending mechanism with the European Commission] - see: 18/02 EU-Africa Business Forum 2022: private and public actors conclude agreements to accelerate Africa’s growth

16/02. A presentation on the interface between Horizon Europe and NDIC/Global Europe
Nienke Buisman is Head of Unit International Cooperation Policy in the European Commission, Directorate-General Research & Innovation - and is in charge of developing and implementing the ‘Global Approach to Research and Innovation’, Europe’s strategy for international cooperation, specifically focussing on Africa, Asia
In her presentation (see video) she referred to above mentioned report.

Wednesday, February 16, 2022