Context. The rise in non-communicable diseases (NCDs) threatens to roll back the progress that has been made in health and development of Africa. Globally, the World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that in 2008, there were 36 million deaths from NCDs, projected to rise to 50 million by 2050. In 2008, these deaths were mainly from cardiovascular diseases (48%), cancers (21%), chronic respiratory diseases (12%) and diabetes (3.5%), with 80% of all the deaths occurring in low- and middle-income countries. In Sub-Saharan Africa, WHO estimates that 23% of all deaths are from NCDs, and projected to grow to 27% by 2020. What is however not clear, due to lack of data from the continent, is the distribution of among the key NCDs. The rise in NCDs in Africa places a tremendous social and economic burden on communities through increased absenteeism, job loss, unaffordable medical costs, increased responsibilities from family members for care-giving, or complete loss of income from death of the breadwinner. The loss of income (partial or complete) pushes low income households further into the poverty trap. On a broader scale, the combined effect of decreased labour outputs, lower return on human capital investments, increased healthcare costs, and loss of economic activity, leads to increasing inequalities not only within populations, but between countries. The four common NCDs - cardiovascular diseases, cancers, chronic respiratory diseases and diabetes - have four shared behavioural risk factors: tobacco use, unhealthy diet, physical inactivity and harmful alcohol use. These are in conjunction with other conditions including mental disorders, disabilities (including blindness and deafness), violence and injuries. To achieve a reduction in the levels of NCDs, there must be a concerted effort to bring about behaviour change through evidence-based approaches by conducting localised research and training. Aims and Objectives. The ARUA Centre of Excellence on NCDs (ACE-NCDs) provides a platform for the creation of a long-term strategic network of researchers in African Universities through a hub and spoke model to strengthen intra-African collaboration, and collaboration between the network and the rest of the world. The ACE-NCD will build on the strengths of the core university members, University of Nairobi (Kenya and the Hub), University of Ghana, University of Ibadan (Nigeria), Makerere University (Uganda) and the University of the Witwatersrand (S. Africa). At its inception, the ACE-NCD has also partnered with the University of Leicester and University of Glasgow who shall support its development. In addition, the ACE-NCD will bring on board relevant stakeholders involved in prevention, control and management of NCDs within their regions including medical research institutions, relevant professionals, policy-makers, civil society to ensure co-design and co-production of high impact research output that shall be support policy-making, interventions, and commercialisable intellectual property. Continental and regional teams will be supported to develop grant proposals around the ACE-NCD thematic areas, thus ensuring sustainability and growth of ACE-NCD beyond the current grant. Potential Application and Benefits. ACE-NCDs seeks to build capacity in holistic NCD research through training of Masters and PhD students (while ensuring co-supervision across member universities), targetted short courses in need-identified areas, staff and student exchanges, among other interventions. Dissemination of research output will be through journal and conference articles and book chapters targeting researchers and practitioners, policy-briefs, workshops and seminars aimed at policy-makers, stakeholders and civil society. The envisioned outcome as a result of this capacity building funding is a vibrant, sustainable ACE-NCD at the forefront of NCD research, capacity-building and policymaking support in Africa.

The EAGLO project brings together leading scientists in focused research activities and scientific exchange for a two year period. In addition to the PI and Co-I, the research will be supported by partners from leading institutions with experience in climate, limnology, economics and decision support in the African Lakes region. The project will strongly benefit from the past and present participation of project researchers nationally and internationally sponsored research in the region. Project scientists will make new developments in monitoring (in-situ and earth observation), modelling (socio-economic, biogeochemical, hydrological) and management technologies, focusing on regional trends in lake ecosystem dynamics. These tools will enable the simulation of the mutual feedbacks between socio-economic drivers, climate and regional environmental change (eg. trends in watershed and airshed conditions) and ecosystem services. Based on this new understanding of ecosystem resilience, scientists will identify new opportunities for adaptation to improve human well being and reduce regional poverty. Within the project, three linked working groups will perform activities related to research, technological development, scientific exchange and dissemination. 1. Monitoring protocol and technology development: Activities: - development of common protocols for monitoring biological, physical and chemical parameters (incl. definition of temporal and spatial scales for data acquisition). Specifically, creating a common protocol that can be used to compare conditions of lake stratification, primary production, eutrophication, carbon sequestration, trophic networks, etc. - development of regionally valid calibration algorithms for earth observation and analysis approaches for the study of spatio-temporal dynamics of high elevation African lakes using multispectral satellite data (MODIS, MERIS, SeaWiFs). - collaboration with international satellite database archive managers (ESA, NASA, NERC EODC) to increase the availability of calibrated satellite data to African researchers and planners. Expected participants: EAGLO scientists, NGOs and regional environmental agencies, Target audiences: regional scientists, national ministries, international scientific community 2. Regional lake / climate / environmental database Activities: - development of EAGLO.base, a research database protocol and database structure for African lakes data. - link the EAGLO.base protocol and structure to the EIDC Expected participants: EAGLO scientists, regional environmental agencies, EIDC scientists Target audiences: regional scientists, national ministries and policy makers, international scientific community 3. Ecosystem scenario simulation and analysis Activities: - development of scenarios (to 2050) based on trends in resource quality, ecosystem functioning, resource utilisation and climate. - interlinked dynamics will be examine using models developed in present and past projects. Expected participants: EAGLO scientists, national ministries, NGOs Target audiences: national ministries and policy makers, regional scientific community, supranational (AU) policy makers, NGOs An initial workshop, open to project partners and the regional stakeholders and policy makers will be organised in the first year. Development of specific technological and modelling aspects will be organised through a project communication platform and through short term exchanges (<1 month) of project scientists and junior researchers. Each working group (3) will hold a scientific workshop during the second year of the project to consolidate the results produced, ensure the collaborative development of these instruments with stakeholders, and indicate the requirements for further development.