CEA-FIRST, the Consortium Europe Africa on Research and Innovation for Food Systems Transformation, consists of 21 partners from Africa and Europe, partly from the former LEAP4FNSSA, extended with new public and private network partners. CEA-FIRST will operationalise the International Research Consortium (IRC) as a long-term platform on food and nutrition security and sustainable agriculture (FNSSA) in line with the FNSSA Roadmap of the AU-EU High-Level Policy Dialogue (HLPD). This IRC is a member-based, multi-actor platform and will work towards increasing synergies and coherence while reducing fragmentation and duplication of research efforts. Its aim is to promote higher returns on investments and impact on business development in Africa and Europe, by linking actors, research and innovation projects, initiatives, and funding programmes. CEA-FIRST will: 1. provide public access to a large knowledge platform, 2. offer a sound method for analysis of R&I activities, 3. support the updating of the FNSSA Roadmap, 4. establish operational working groups and thematic research calls. The final output will be a fully functional IRC, including governance bodies. CEA-FIRST will also support its liaison with the High-Level Policy Dialogue (HLPD). It will create a learning environment, including communication channels, to support multi stakeholder networks and to strengthen R&I coordination. The IRC will also serve related AU-EU policy priorities, such as the Climate Change and Sustainable Energy and the Innovation Agenda of the HLPD, as well as the European Green Deal priorities (and farm to fork strategy) and the AU priorities like the African Free Trade Area.

Building on earlier experiences such as LEAP-Agri, Belmont Forum and JPI FACCE, the project will implement a range of joint activities, contributing to the creation of a strong and effective trans-national, European-African-Latin America and the Caribbean research and innovation network and the better coordination and synergising of national, international and EU research programmes relevant to food security under climate change evolution. The joint call will focus on regional food systems within a global perspective and addressing: - Assessing climate change-related risks for food value chains, including impacts on prices, international trade and food security, and resulting changes in consumer behaviours. The three dimensions of sustainability will be adressed: social-cultural, economic, and environmental (including climate change mitigation); - Improving resilience and reducing volatility in agri-food production and food markets to sustainably improve food security in the context of climatic variation; - Reducing food losses under climate change including through novel approaches to valorise side streams and reduce food waste. The first pillar of the proposal relates to the preparation and implementation of a joint call for proposals for collaborative research and innovation projects, funded by European, African and South American national research funding agencies, with additional support from the European Commission. In addition, the call will be co-funded by some Belmont Forum members. These countries does not want to participate to the EU project but will be surely, as Belmont forum, member participating to the call, funding their national teams without any top up from the European Commission. The projects selected through the call will focus on achieving goals of mutual benefit for Member States, Associated Countries and Africa and South America countries, based on a balanced and cooperative approach.

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 general objective of LEAP4FNSSA is to establish a sustainable structure, or ‘Platform’, for the efficient and coherent implementation of the AU-EU Research and Innovation Partnership as described in the FNSSA Roadmap. Under the aegis of the HLPD and its Bureau, and by building upon related projects such as RINEA, CAAST-Net. Plus, ProIntensAfrica and LEAP-Agri, LEAP4FNSSA aims to achieve this overall objective through three specific objectives: - Increase the synergies and coherence between actors, research and innovation projects, initiatives and programmes, through the development of institutional alliances and clusters of projects; - Develop a learning environment and a large knowledge base, including monitoring and evaluation activities, creating communication and links between different initiatives to improve STI cooperation; - Establish a long term and sustainable governance and funding mechanism for the Platform. To reach these objectives, LEAP4FNSSA will build on a large consortium of experienc