With FCI4Africa completing its first 12 months, the project has made remarkable progress towards developing synergies and collaboration with similar initiatives in Europe and Africa. With a shared objective of promoting sustainable, equitable, and healthy food systems in Africa, FCI4Africa has developed partnerships that leverage expertise, facilitate knowledge sharing, and foster innovation in the agri-food value chain.
This year, collaboration was all in four focal projects: FoodSafety4Africa, INCiTiS-FOOD, modernAKIS, and STREAMING, each making a different contribution.
FS4Africa: Food Safety and Trade Promotion
By signing a Memorandum of Understanding with FS4Africa, FCI4Africa has created a platform for close cooperation aimed at strengthening food safety systems, particularly in informal markets, while promoting regional trade. By sharing knowledge, best practices, and co-organisation of events and conferences, both initiatives are working to avoid duplication, improve impact, and achieve each project’s outcomes more effectively. This collaboration contributes to our mutual desire to create safer, fairer, and more resilient food systems in Africa.
INCiTiS-FOOD: Linking Trade to Urban Food Security
Our cooperation with INCiTiS-FOOD seeks to reinforce fair and free trade strategies with strengthened food and nutrition security within African urban areas. With the complementarity of INCiTiS-FOOD’s skills in urban agri-food systems and FCI4Africa’s digitisation and harmonisation of trade, the two projects have examined synergies for joint webinars, research consortia, and solutions benefiting vulnerable city stakeholders. This cooperation represents a key step towards ensuring that trading practices promote healthy, equitable, and resilient food systems.
modernAKIS: Linking Knowledge and Innovation
modernAKIS and FCI4Africa share the common vision of sustainable farming and capacity development through knowledge and innovation systems. This collaboration offers avenues for joint policy workshops, joint involvement in networking events, and crafting digital platforms for ease of knowledge dissemination and innovation uptake. By bridging African food systems with European Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation Systems (AKIS), the collaboration offers a good platform for technology transfer, collaborative research, and efficient rollout of sustainable solutions.
STREAMING: Fostering Innovation and Market Entry
STREAMING and FCI4Africa share a common vision of encouraging collaboration between industry, academia, and policymakers to promote digital knowledge transfer and innovation. Through their complementary work, the projects are finding solutions to develop food security, market access, and African food system resilience. Through their joint efforts, the projects are drawing on STREAMING’s strengths in generating innovations along the food value chain and FCI4Africa’s focus on equitable and healthy trade to drive research, technology transfer, and results in the sector.
Looking Ahead to Synergy Days 2025
While Synergy Days 2025 gets underway (21–22 October, Rotterdam), these partnerships will be in the spotlight; they will show how synergies can transform African food systems, fuel sustainable development, fair trade, and healthier societies.
Through these synergies, FCI4Africa is not only connecting projects but also joining ideas, know-how, and action to bring tangible impact to African agriculture. The first 12 months have set the tone firmly, setting the stage for even more coordination, breakthrough innovations, and measurable success in the months ahead.
