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Innovations in Technology, Institutional and Extension Approaches towards Sustainable Agriculture and enhanced Food and Nutritional Security in Africa

Project description

Boosting food and nutrition security in Africa through innovative technology

Efforts to improve food and nutrition security through sustainable farming in Africa have not always met with success. This may be attributed to poor implementation and inadequate transfer of technologies and knowledge. With demonstrations in six case countries, the EU-funded InnovAfrica project aims to boost food and nutrition security for small-scale farmers. To do so, it will introduce sustainable agriculture intensification systems supported by multi-actor platforms and extension and advisory services. Each case will be tailored to particular community needs, taking into account the ecological and socioeconomic conditions of the region. The outcomes will lead to increased productivity and income for smallholder farmers, especially women, while reducing negative environmental impacts.

Objective

Food and nutrition security (FNS) remains a challenge for Africa, despite efforts made in agricultural research and extension in the past, due to inefficient implementation and exchange of technologies and knowledge to end users. The main objective of InnovAfrica is to improve FNS by integrating sustainable agriculture intensification (SAI) systems, innovative institutional approaches (IIAs) with novel extension and advisory services (EASs) and enhancing smallholder adaptive capacity in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). InnovAfrica addresses main challenges of the work programme (SFS-42-2016), through a strong multidisciplinary EU-Africa consortium of 16 partners, supported by 6 active Multi-Actor Platforms (MAPs) in 6 case countries (Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, Tanzania and South Africa). InnovAfrica will test, integrate, and disseminate SAI systems suitable to smallholders, institutional approaches (e.g. MAPs, seed delivery systems) and EASs (e.g. dynamic knowledge platforms supported by smart phones, Village Knowledge centers). The main outcomes of InnovAfrica include: i) better understanding of the needs and opportunities of SAI systems in Africa, ii) improved knowledge and innovation capacity of farmers to implement SAI systems supported by IIAs and EASs, iii) improved product value chains through viable IIAs benefiting women and youth, iv) Innovative policies, increased knowledge of public-private partnerships to strengthen agri-business model in case countries with a view to upscaling successes in other regions through functional MAPs, v) Wider dissemination of SAI systems to smallholders and women within and outside project areas through effective use of smart phones and social media, and vi) Stronger EU-Africa Research and Innovation Partnership to achieve FNS. The outcomes will contribute to smallholder productivity, profitability; and nutritional benefits while reducing negative environmental impacts and enhance FNS and sustainable agriculture in Africa.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/euroscivoc.

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Programme(s)

Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.

Topic(s)

Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.

Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

RIA - Research and Innovation action

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Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

(opens in new window) H2020-SFS-2016-2017

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Coordinator

NIBIO - NORSK INSTITUTT FOR BIOOKONOMI
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 710 167,50
Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 710 167,50

Participants (15)

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