Africa-EU Innovation Alliance for Water and Climate

ended

The main objective of AfriAlliance is for African and European stakeholders to work together in the areas of water innovation, research, policy, and capacity development to prepare Africa for future Climate Change challenges. There are many but fragmented initiatives and networks in place, therefore we will not create new but will consolidate existing networks of scientists, decision makers, practitioners, citizens and other key stakeholders into an effective, problem-focused knowledge sharing mechanism via an overall coordination platform: the Africa-EU Innovation Alliance for Water and Climate. We will support them in identifying appropriate social innovation and technological solutions for key water and climate change challenges. We will take Africa-EU cooperation in this field to a practical level by sharing (non)technological innovation for local challenges, thus also identifying and boosting sustainable market and investment opportunities. Demand-driven, problem-focused Action Groups will share knowledge between the identified stakeholders and networks at all scales to effectively identify and address vulnerabilities. We will make extensive use of existing/emerging communication channels and events (EU/African platforms, conferences, social media) to streamline Climate Change issues into water-related networks to raise awareness about their impacts and propose adaptation measures. We will re-enforce and valorise Water and Climate Change research and (social) innovation (R&I) cooperation between Africa and Europe through a mix of forward-looking and bottom-up innovation and road mapping techniques. We will identify demands, opportunities, and constraints at different levels and develop strategic advice (short term demand-driven R&I outlook and long term R&I agenda) for improving Africa-EU collaboration. This will help policy makers to create a consistent approach to bilateral cooperation between Africa and the EU in the field of innovation for water and climate