OpenMod4Africa aims to develop an open Toolbox populated with state-of-the-art models for analysing long-term pathways to sustainable, secure and competitive energy systems in Africa. The Toolbox will build on EU projects like Open ENTRANCE, Plan4RES and FocusAfrica, and will adapt and further develop open models in accordance with the African context and needs. The models are scalable, and can be applied to cities, industries and countries. Furthermore, a main objective for OpenMod4Africa is capacity building among energy models in academia. Five African universities will be actively involved in adapting models and conducting three regional case studies. The additional capacity and the open Toolbox will enable the universities to train new generations of energy modelling experts for the energy industries in Africa. Three decision-makers will also be engaged, together with a network of energy industries and universities in 25 African countries. These players will be invited to use the Toolbox, and to be involved in training activities. They will also be invited to a permanent network of expertise, which will be developed for further capacity building and collaboration beyond the project. Three case studies will develop energy pathways for rural areas, cities, countries and large regions of countries in Western and Eastern Africa and in Tunisia. The replication strategies will pave the way for further analyses beyond the project. Finally, OpenMod4Africa aims to collaborate with other ongoing initiatives to maximize the impacts of the project and create synergies. The consortium consists of 16 partners and 2 associated partners. Nine partners are African. Important long-term impacts from the three-year project include enabling academia and decision-makers in Africa to conduct their own analyses for the optimal development of their energy system, supplying energy to a much larger share of the population, and establishing a system based upon the abundant share of renewables on the continent.

Fluoride in drinking water is one of the most significant water-quality problems affecting populations in Africa. Long-term use of drinking water with fluoride significantly above the WHO guideline value of 1.5 mg/L can have serious effects on health, manifested most prominently by dental and skeletal fluorosis. The Rift Valley of Ethiopia is an arid, groundwater-dependent region with well-established links between fluoride in drinking water and fluorosis. Despite the recognised fluoride anomalies on a regional scale, local-scale variations and their controls are poorly defined and understood. This pilot project aims to investigate the spatial and temporal distributions of fluoride in groundwater in a selected study area of the Rift. The project will characterise the variability, evaluate the underlying causes and determine whether the variations show sufficient predictability to be of practical benefit in providing guidance on improving abstraction strategies. The institutional arrangements governing water management and supply (regulation, policy, funding, capacity and prioritisation) will be assessed in order to understand the governance context of water supply in the area investigated. Through these combined approaches, the project aims to define the most effective ways to translate an improved knowledge on fluoride distributions into improved access to sources of safe, low-fluoride drinking water.