Welcome to the first issue of the Africa Knowledge Platform (AKP) newsletter!

Four years ago, the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) published a comprehensive review - Science for the AU-EU Partnership - on the scientific challenges shared between Africa and Europe. This landmark report highlighted strengths, gaps, and opportunities in the existing evidence base to serve policy across the many sectors and priority areas critical for development. A key message from this report was the urgent need to share data, information, and analyses from the entire JRC research portfolio. And so, the AKP was born.

Launched ahead of the EU-AU Summit in February 2022, the AKP strives to support dialogue between scientists and policymakers in Africa and Europe, and strengthen evidence-based policy on the ground. The AKP can support EU policymakers throughout the whole policy cycle, including international development and cooperation policy initiatives, while also inspiring and raising awareness about current challenges and solutions. We invite you to explore the AKP.

At the time of writing, this open platform contains:

• More than 200 geospatial datasets,
• 17 interactive science-policy stories,
• 10 user-friendly analytical tools and
• A carefully curated list of ongoing partnerships between the JRC and African Institutions.

These features are available for the entire continent of Africa, or as country-specific syntheses.

Our aim is to make the AKP as easy to use as possible, allowing anyone to find and access information. You can filter information based on any of 69 different thematic topics or the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Should you need some help along the way, step-by-step video tutorials will help you navigate the rich features of the AKP.

We encourage you to spread the word about the AKP by inviting your colleagues to subscribe to this newsletter. They can sign up to receive the latest news on the AKP and can manage their subscriptions using the links at the bottom of this newsletter. 

We believe that the AKP signals the beginning of deeper engagement between scientists and policy officers in Africa and Europe. As these relationships continue to grow, so too will the AKP. We therefore welcome any feedback, suggestions, or questions, which can be sent to us at jrc-africa@ec.europa.eu.