EU-African Union – Towards Climate-neutral, Social Just Fair Trade Food Systems

In line with the European Green Deal priorities and the farm to fork strategy for a fair, healthy and environment‑friendly food system, and in support of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement, the successful proposal will contribute to the AU-EU High Level Policy Dialogue (HLPD) on Science, Technology and Innovation, and its first priority on Food and Nutrition Security and Sustainable Agriculture.

The farm to fork strategy aims to accelerate the transition to a sustainable food system that should have a neutral or positive environmental impact, help to mitigate climate change and adapt to its impacts. New opportunities in EU-African trade are opening-up for trade regimes with co-benefits for producers, climate and citizens. Innovative Information and Communications Technology (ICT) based, traceability and certification schemes should maximise co-benefits while helping to keep the effects of Non-Tariff Measures (NTMs) in particular administrative and transaction costs low.

The African countries signed the African Continental Free Trade Agreement and launched an action plan for Boosting Intra-African Trade with a view to strengthening regional integration. It is also one of the key priorities of the Africa Agenda 2063 and a major step towards African continental economic integration.

Project results are expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:

• Improved assessment systems for sustainable food trade regimes with co-benefits for producers, climate and citizens, biodiversity, assessment of certification schemes (organic, carbon neutral, de-forestation free, conventional), testing innovative solutions with food systems/certification actors;
• Provide data and recommendations for improved Non-Tariff Measure (NTM) regimes;
• Provide solutions to food trade, Ministries in charge, border regime management (digital solutions).

Proposals are expected to address the following:

• Study the tipping points to scale-up climate-neutral, fair and just food supply;
• Explore the climate, biodiversity and social impacts of food supply (organic and conventional) and linked products due to land-use change;
• Better understanding of the aim, collection, quantification and modelling of NTMs relevant for intra-African and EU-AU trade relations;
• Clearly explain how the proposal will contribute towards scaling-up of business models of climate-neutral fair and just and efficient food supply;
• Implement the multi-actor approach by involving a wide range of food system actors and conducting inter-disciplinary research;
• Link to previous projects on urban – rural food systems for solutions to strengthen resilience of food systems in view of supply and/or price shocks.

Innovation: Proposals should foresee a space for mentoring and accelerating innovative business concepts, including social innovation and upscaling in view of African or European food business entrepreneurs and start-ups with special consideration of women and the diaspora using cascading funding opportunities. Proposals should involve financial support to third parties e.g. to academic researchers, start-ups, SMEs and other multidisciplinary actors, to, for instance, develop, test or validate developed assessment approaches or collect or prepare data sets or provide other contributions to achieve the project objectives... Consortia need to define the selection process of organisations, for which financial support will be granted. Maximum 20% of the EU funding can be allocated to this purpose.