Nutrition in emergency situations - Ready-to-use Supplementary Food (RUSF) and Ready-to-use Therapeutic Food (RUTF)

Research and innovation collaboration between Europe and Africa will help the African countries (health specialists, producers, seed companies, SMEs and food industries) to develop/ scale up the relevant and sustainable local production of RUSF and RUTF or any other types of supplements and related ingredients, using varieties adapted to local climate and agro-ecological conditions, thereby protecting and restoring biodiversity. Thereby contributing to reduce the climate footprint of production and transport in line with the objectives of climate change adaptation and mitigation and sustainable and efficient management of natural resources. Implement the multi-actor approach by involving a wide range of food systems actors and conducting inter-disciplinary research. Link up for clustering to other projects of the AU-EU research and innovation priorities, in particular linked to Food Systems transition projects and the wider range of projects in Food and Nutrition Security and Sustainable Agriculture (FNSSA), Climate Change and Sustainable Energy (CCSE) and the AU-EU Innovation Union using the network linkages to the CEA-First project and the International Research Consortium on FNSSA.

Innovation: Proposals should foresee a space for mentoring and accelerating innovative business concepts, including social innovation and upscaling in view of African or European food business entrepreneurs and start-ups with special consideration of women and the diaspora using cascading funding opportunities. Proposals should involve financial support to third parties e.g. to academic researchers, health institutes, start-ups, SMEs and other multidisciplinary actors, to, for instance, develop, test or validate developed assessment approaches or collect or prepare data sets or provide other contributions to achieve the project objectives. Consortia need to define the selection process of organisations, for which financial support will be granted. Maximum 20% of the EU funding can be allocated to this purpose. Proposals should involve contributions from the social sciences and humanities (SSH) disciplines.