The ONEPlanET project aims to develop a common nexus modelling framework to simulate and evaluate pathways to define a more sustainable future in Africa through the deployment of renewable energy infrastructure. In this way, it will be possible to stimulate a green energy transition in the continent as well as a decarbonization of existing energy plants. The ONEPlanET model will be tailored to the needs of different stakeholders and end-users (public and private actors, policy and decision-makers, experts, and citizens) and will be totally open source to stimulate its future upgrades. The model will include information on Water, Energy, Food (WEF) and interlinkages with other sectors as Economy, Ecosystems, Society, Climate and Land for delivering a multi-sectoral assessment consistent with socio-economic and climate scenarios. The ONEPlanET modelling approach will integrate Earth Observation data (e.g., Copernicus, ESA or GEOSS), statistical data and information from basins to national and regional, via three representative case studies in the Songwe (Malawi/Tanzania), Inkomati-Usuthu (South Africa) and Niger (Nigeria) river basins, which show different types of basins and socio-ecological systems. ONEPlanET will help to better understand the interactions between Nexus sectors to deliver sound technical and policy recommendations towards the implementation of energy infrastructure to build a more climate neutral and resilient society.

The LEAP-RE programme aligns with and responds to the AU-EU high-level policies and specific objectives of the CCSE Roadmap. It seeks to create a long-term partnership of African and European stakeholders in a quadruple helix approach: government (programme owners and funding agencies), research and academia, private sector, and civil society. Impact will be sought by creating a framework, methodology, and cooperation model. The aim is to reduce fragmentation by aligning existing bilateral and multilateral frameworks. LEAP-RE establishes and jointly implements research, innovation, and capacity-building activities that respond to the Multi-Annual Roadmaps (MARs) developed in PRE-LEAP-RE. The programme opted for a large-scale, inclusive consortium of 96 partners from 34 countries and 2 international organisations, to ensure a broad thematic, geographical and stakeholder coverage, and to demonstrate the feasibility of the collaboration and build trust in view of a long-term partnership addressing the post-2025 period. LEAP-RE draws on the experience and partnership developed in PRE-LEAP-RE, which conceptualised and developed a framework for long-term, bi-regional cooperation in research, innovation, and capacity building in renewable energies. This partnership is further strengthened by previous collaboration between partners in other projects supporting the EU-Africa HLPD on STI, such as LEAP-Agri, ERAfrica, LEAP4FNSSA, RINEA, and CAAST-Net Plus. Furthermore, the proposal includes a number of R&I partners, 8 individual projects (formalised as Work Packages), which were chosen among expressions of interest received in late 2019.

The African Union's Science, Technology, and Innovation Strategy for Africa (STISA-2024) positions science, technology, and innovation as fundamental drivers of Africa’s socio-economic development and growth. It emphasizes the need to strengthen three main pillars: 1) Building/upgrading Research Infrastructures (RI), 2) Enhancing professional and technical competencies, and 3) Promoting entrepreneurship and innovation. It also highlights the importance of fostering collaboration among African countries and establishing partnerships with international stakeholders. ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) is identified as a critical priority sector. Areas such as computer science, telecommunications, cloud computing, big data, artificial intelligence, machine learning, security, and IoT offer potential for creating new knowledge, research capacities, and industries that address African and global challenges. DIGITAfrica aims to lay the foundations of a pan-African comprehensive RI in Digital Sciences, which will have a transformative impact on AU-EU shared R&I, as well as innovative education and training. DIGITAfrica will prepare the transformation of this partnership into a sustained research initiative in common strategic fields. Drawing from the expertise of partners across five AU countries, each with a strong background and representing diverse African contexts, alongside EU partners who coordinate the first two ESFRI DIGIT RIs dedicated to Digital Sciences, DIGITAfrica aims to exchange experiences, consult stakeholders, and foster dialogue to collaboratively develop a strategic approach. DIGITAfrica will serve as a catalyst for realizing the vision of a pan-African Digital RI and should become a cornerstone of Euro-African cooperation in R&I. The impact of DIGITAfrica will contribute to digitally transforming the African continent for prosperity and inclusivity, and to move with Europe towards a shared twin green and digital transition agenda.

mHealth4Afrika is a collaborative research project that addresses maternal and newborn healthcare delivery, a key requirement of end-user communities in developing countries, and priority area in both the 2015 Millennium Development Goals and Post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals. Aligned with Horizon 2020 Societal Challenges, mHealth4Afrika will research and evaluate the potential impact of co-designing an open source, multilingual mHealth platform on the quality of community based maternal and newborn healthcare delivery in Southern Africa (Malawi, South Africa), East Africa (Kenya) and Horn of Africa (Ethiopia). Research and innovation actors from three European and four African countries will engage with local end-user communities (i.e. representatives of parents and local community leaders, Ministry of Health, healthcare professionals and volunteers, health oriented NGOs). Based on this User-centred Design, Living Labs, Collaborative Open Innovation based approach, the consortium will integrate and adapt · Multilingual electronic health records to store patient history, associated tests and test results; · Sensors to capture the results of a range of standardised tests for expectant and lactating mothers, unborn babies and infants; · Analytical and visualisation tools to facilitate the interpretation and monitoring of the patient results; and · Multi-lingual and multimodal mobile interfaces leveraging visualisation and speech synthesis to address literacy deficits and digitise data gathering through electronic forms. By focusing on accessibility, usability and integrated training, this will facilitate urban, rural and deep rural healthcare workers to adopt and use a comprehensive system that integrates quality community based healthcare delivery with telemedicine. The expected outcome is a multi-region proof of concept that can make a significant contribution in accelerating exploitation of mHealth across Africa.

The DI-DIDA project's overall objective is to tackle poverty-related infectious diseases in sub-Saharan Africa and African islands by i) strengthening the African research capacities, ii) enhancing technology development in diagnostics and digital technologies in Africa, and iii) encouraging adoption of innovations by sub-Saharan health authorities, clinicians, businesses, and patients. For that, the consortium includes leading partners from four sub-Saharan African countries (Kenya, Senegal, Tanzania, and Uganda), one from African Islands (Réunion), and the EU. To reach our objectives, we will implement a combination of complementary actions: - Joint research projects on infectious diseases co-morbidities, human-livestock interactions, infectious diseases diagnostic technologies, digital health solutions for Africa, and socio-economic factors of innovation adoption by African people. - The co-development of an innovative low-cost diagnostic and digital/mHealth decision support technology and its integration into existing African digital health infrastructure. - Clinical trials. - A PhD fellowship for students in Africa with joint PhD awarding by EU counterparts. - Research capacity building (management, grant writing, publications etc.) - Staff exchanges. - Training. - Organisation of citizen and brokerage events targeting businesses and policy makers. - A comprehensive dissemination, exploitation, and communication action plan. The impact of this project will be: - Improved research / technology development and manufacturing /clinical trials capacities in sub-Saharan Africa. - New knowledge gained on several topics related with poverty-related infectious diseases. - Increased international networks and reinforcement of the collaboration between Africa and the EU. - A new low-cost diagnostics and decision support technology developed and its adoption fostered by dedicated studies and collaboration with health authorities. - Better informed sub-Saharan populations about infectious diseases.