Capacity Building in Higher Education through the development of a Food and Nutritional Resilience curricula adapted to the European Green Deal, Farm to Fork Strategy and to the needs of West Africa

ongoing

NEEMA means food in Fula, a Senegambian language. The starting hypothesis of the NEEMA project is that the conceptual framework provided by the European Green Deal (EGD) and the Farm to Fork (F2F) Strategy must be adapted to the conditions of the Sahel and West Africa (WA), identifying, minimising and reducing its negative impact on Food and Nutritional security, especially for the most vulnerable populations. The project is aimed at achieving the following objectives: (i) design a new contextual Food and Nutritional Resilience (FNR) curricula adapting the EGD and the F2F Strategy to fit the needs of the West African region and train professors, decision makers and other relevant stakeholders to deliver more effective public policies on sustainable agriculture development and enhance the capacities of participating Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) to be changemakers; (ii) improve participating HEIs capacities to support national FNR policies by designing and implementing one social innovation pilot initiative in Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger and Senegal; (iii) strengthen cooperation between participating HEIs and European food and nutrition partners including universities, European Technology Platforms and selected clusters, by identifying synergies and common EU–West Africa research, development and innovation challenges. The project will be implemented by the NEEMA consortium, established in June 2021 and made up of 14 HEIs from Africa (8) and Europe (6), with the participation of leading universities from the Ulysseus Alliance. The main outcomes of the project will be a new and adapted FNR curricula, a FNR Social Innovation Pilot Model, the development of the NEEMA Strategy and Action Plan on FNR challenges in the WA-Sahel region and the creation of a Regional FNR training and research Network. The project will contribute to strengthen and modernise the 8 participating African HEIs through the generation and transfer of new knowledge, adapted to local needs.