July 2024 marks the One Year Anniversary of the adoption of the joint AU-EU Innovation Agenda

The joint African Union (AU) - European Union (EU) Innovation Agenda is an unprecedented 10-year policy initiative that aims to foster the translation of Research and Innovation (R&I) into tangible positive socio-economic impact on the ground; generating products, services, businesses and jobs in Africa and Europe. The Agenda is structured around the four priority areas of the AU-EU cooperation in R&I: Public Health, Green Transition, Innovation and Technology, and Capacities for Science, encompassing also the area of Cross-cutting issues. For each of these areas, the Agenda foresees short-, medium- and long-term actions.

The AU-EU Innovation Agenda was politically adopted by AU and EU R&I Ministers on 19 July 2023. Since this date, several initiatives have been successfully launched, as part of the implementation of the Agenda. 

On 23 June 2023, just on the verge of the adoption of the Agenda, the first ever AU-EU Innovation Festival took place in Cape Town and online. It brought together more than 450 participants from Africa, Europe and beyond. The Festival hosted the second edition of the “AU-EU Innovation Fair – Meet the Innovators”, the finals of the “ENRICH in Africa Open Innovation Challenges” and Agora sessions on Youth-led and Women-led Innovations. 

November 2023 saw the successful launch of the biannual series of Virtual Workshops on the implementation of the Agenda. The first Virtual Workshop on Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) took place on 28 November 2023, gathering more than 200 participants. This was followed by a second Virtual Workshop on Access to Finance that occurred on 29 May 2024 and was attended by more than 300 participants. 

November 2023 also witnessed the officialisation of the “AU-EU Innovation Agenda Working Group” of the AU-EU High-Level Policy Dialogue (HLPD) on Science, Technology and Innovation. This Working Group oversees the implementation of the Agenda and includes government officials, as well as academic and independent experts from AU and EU Member States and regional organisations. 

In March 2024, the Dashboard of the AU-EU Innovation Agenda was officially launched during a dedicated session at the EU’s R&I Days in Brussels. It is a living repository, updated on a regular basis, that showcases initiatives that contribute to the implementation of this Agenda. New initiatives are indeed added to the Dashboard on a quarterly basis, following a rigorous assessment of ten criteria outlined in the AU-EU Innovation Agenda Roadmap, performed by a dedicated Task Force of the AU-EU Innovation Agenda Working Group. The first quarterly review of potential additional initiatives was completed in July 2024. 

The AU-EU Innovation Agenda was also the focus of many stakeholder outreach events over the last year. Amongst others, for example, the discussion on access to finance for young innovators that took place in April 2024 at the 2024 African Regional Forum on Science, Technology and Innovation, hosted by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA). In July 2024, the Agenda was also showcased at the first edition of the Nigeria-EU Innovation Days - Where ideas meet actions in Lagos, which was attended by more than 500 participants on-site and approximately 200 online. 

Two publications were also foreseen for July 2024, on the occasion of the One Year Anniversary of the adoption the Agenda: an overview of the Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning methodology to be used to measure the impact of implementation of the Agenda, and a summary video highlighting the main achievements of the implementation of the Agenda so far. 

The one just behind us was indeed the first year of implementation of this Agenda – engage in and contribute to the realisation of this unprecedented collaborative effort by following the AU-EU innovation Interface!