EU-African High-Level Policy Dialogue on Science, Technology and Innovation

By African Union Commission (AUC)

INVITATION TO REPRESENTATIVES OF THE MEDIA

When: From 4th - 6th April, 2016.

Time: From 9:30 AM

Where: AUC's New Conference Complex, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Who: Organized by the Department of Human Resources Science and Technology (HRST) of the AUC and the European Union.

Background: Africa and Europe have a rich and long-term evolving relationship in scientific and technological research and innovation. Shared priorities and policy objectives between the two continents affirm the contribution of science, technology and innovation (STI) to addressing common and global challenges, by enhancing social, environmental and economic well-being of the people, hence being the drivers of this cooperation.

Continental frameworks such as the African Union's STI Strategy for Africa 2024 and the Europe 2020 Strategy spell out the regions' scientific and technical priorities for driving social and economic growth and development. Both are explicitly cognizant to the importance of partnership to addressing these priorities, an acknowledgement that is regularly endorsed at high-level meetings across the continents.

The recent adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals in New York and the Addis Ababa Action Agenda (AAAA) on financing for development affirms the global consensus around the centrality of international cooperation on Science, Technology and Innovation, and of enhanced knowledge sharing for achieving the goals and their associated targets. The second SDG on achieving food security, improved nutrition and sustainable agriculture as well as the first SDG on ending poverty in all its forms everywhere is of direct relevance to the context of the High Level Policy Dialogue (HLPD) stakeholder forum.

Objectives

The HLPD seeks to centralize around these objectives:

Foster the engagement of actors across the whole FNSSA value chain and essential for innovation: government, industry, and civil society and research organizations. Present the short-to medium-term investments made towards the implementation of the Africa-EU R&I Partnership on FNSSA. Explore concrete long-term options for the implementation of the Africa-EU R&I Partnership on FNSSA.

Expected Outputs and Outcomes:

Stimulating engagement of existing and new national, regional, philanthropic and private funders with their programs/schemes for supporting the Africa-EU R&I Partnership on FNSSA. Developing a concrete approach for a long-term collaboration platform including all relevant actors and existing initiatives along the whole FNSSA value chain from knowledge to innovations. Gaining further stakeholder recommendations on modalities like organizational structure, funding and communication for the implementation of the R&I Partnership on FNSSA for particular attention of funding institutions and policy makers. Initiating a discourse on:

Common Research agendas The monitoring and evaluation of collaborative bi-regional cooperation and draft guidelines for the monitoring and evaluation of the Africa-EU R&I Partnership on FNSSA.

Achieving local impact for end-users and consumers.

Journalists are invited to cover the Conference on EU-Africa High-Level Policy Dialogue (HLPD) on Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) in ensuring food security, Nutrition and Sustainable Agriculture, (FNSSA), scheduled for Monday 4th- Wednesday 6th April, 2016.