The overall objective of Joint AQ Africa is to contribute to the harmonization of higher education in Africa by setting up comparable quality assurance systems, defined by the cooperation of national authorities and HEI. The project will engage three pilot countries (Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire), in the development of a model for university institutional and programme level evaluation, based on a joint and complementary approach (national/regional/African continental) in order to inspire joint accreditation in French-speaking Africa, in particular. The methodology involves several stakeholders in this process and ultimately addresses the different gaps that exist in the various countries targeted, in terms of consolidating their QA and accreditation systems:a)Ministries and QA agencies and their capacities to agree on a common model for joint assessment;b)Universities and their abilities to assess their performance against these standards and to build their own internal QA processes;c)The main networks and associations for higher education and quality assurance in Africa, and their capacities to work collectively in the region and internationally, and to promote and apply similar approaches to other African countries and regions.The main outputs will be the development of a joint evaluation model, guidelines for its execution and six pilot evaluations. African partner universities will build capacity for self-assessment, through training for quality assurance staff. Training is also offered to the staff of ministries, and spaces are created whereby ministries and universities co-create approaches and build trust towards their respective QA systems. Through CAMES and important associated partners, awareness will be raised at the political level on the importance of the consolidation of a regional accreditation approach, which can serve systems which do not yet have QA agencies and can put forward mutual recognition of accreditation decisions.

Built on LEAP-RE programme implemented between 2020 and 2025, the LEAP-SE action will organize 2 co-funded calls steered by European and African funding organisations. The Calls Steering Committee (CSC), gathering all funding organisations involved in the action, will select the projects to be funded considering the specific national eligibility and funding rules of each funding agency (nationality of beneficiaries, TRL, nature of beneficiaries, thematic scope, etc.). It should be noted that, even if the overall scope of LEAP-SE enlarges to all sustainable energy fields matching the CCSE scope on energy (including the multiannual roadmaps of LEAP-RE and the enlarged to green hydrogen issues) it will still be possible for funding agencies to focus their specific action on their own priority lines, in term of thematic focus or on TRL level. LEAP-SE draws on the experience and partnership developed in LEAP-RE. This partnership is further strengthened by a much larger number of African organisations/countries participating to the co-funded calls and by previous collaboration between partners in other projects supporting the EU-Africa HLPD on STI, such as LEAP-Agri, ERAfrica, LEAP4FNSSA, RINEA, CAAST-Net Plus and FOSC. It will work with other European partnerships such as CETP and DUT. LEAP-SE will also ensure the follow-up and monitoring of the funded projects, the valorisation of the results and clustering activities will ensure a broad dissemination of projects outputs reaching a global coherence among funded projects and avoiding fragmentation. The high-level dialogue foreseen with policymakers and institutional stakeholders will ensure that LEAP-SE has access to the relevant instances to raise any policy or regulatory issue hindering the deployment of some innovative solutions.

The objective of LEAP-AGRI is to fulfil the ambition of the Europe Africa dialogue in Science and Technology (the HLPD) to launch a joint flagship initiative on its chosen priority area: Food and Nutrition Security and Sustainable Agriculture (FNSSA). This partnership will increase investments in research and innovation through coordinated bi-regional (EU/Africa) mechanisms aimed at reducing fragmentation. These mechanisms will be based on two complementary approaches: - The preparation and implementation of a joint call for proposals for collaborative R&I projects between European and African partners which will contribute to the coordination and increase of joint activities between R&I institutions, and their programmes across European Union Member States (and Associated countries) and African countries. It will pool the financial resources from 22 countries for a total of over €28 M, including EC participation; - The identification and test of innovative instruments for alignment and collaboration in res

The LEAP-RE programme aligns with and responds to the AU-EU high-level policies and specific objectives of the CCSE Roadmap. It seeks to create a long-term partnership of African and European stakeholders in a quadruple helix approach: government (programme owners and funding agencies), research and academia, private sector, and civil society. Impact will be sought by creating a framework, methodology, and cooperation model. The aim is to reduce fragmentation by aligning existing bilateral and multilateral frameworks. LEAP-RE establishes and jointly implements research, innovation, and capacity-building activities that respond to the Multi-Annual Roadmaps (MARs) developed in PRE-LEAP-RE. The programme opted for a large-scale, inclusive consortium of 96 partners from 34 countries and 2 international organisations, to ensure a broad thematic, geographical and stakeholder coverage, and to demonstrate the feasibility of the collaboration and build trust in view of a long-term partnership addressing the post-2025 period. LEAP-RE draws on the experience and partnership developed in PRE-LEAP-RE, which conceptualised and developed a framework for long-term, bi-regional cooperation in research, innovation, and capacity building in renewable energies. This partnership is further strengthened by previous collaboration between partners in other projects supporting the EU-Africa HLPD on STI, such as LEAP-Agri, ERAfrica, LEAP4FNSSA, RINEA, and CAAST-Net Plus. Furthermore, the proposal includes a number of R&I partners, 8 individual projects (formalised as Work Packages), which were chosen among expressions of interest received in late 2019.