Africa Knowledge Platform news

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.

The Africa Knowledge Platform was showcased during the European Development Days (EDD) held in Brussels in June 2022. The development community came together to share experiences on how best to tackle the world’s most pressing development challenges. The theme of the 15^th edition was Global Gateway: building sustainable partnerships for a connected world; an ambition shared by the AKP.

Most participants who interacted with the AKP recognised it as an invaluable tool that can remove barriers to sharing data between stakeholders. Users also appreciated how the AKP makes it easy to explore spatial data and export statistics in a few clicks.

The two days at the EDD brought together many new potential partners and planted the seeds for several concrete collaborative actions that will take shape in the coming months.

Fifteen years ago, the African Union established the Great Green Wall Initiative to combat desertification, land degradation and climate change. The Great Green Wall spans 8,000 km along the southern edge of the Saharan Desert, from Senegal to Djibouti, and aims to create 10 million jobs by restoring 100 million hectares of degraded land and capturing 250 tonnes of carbon dioxide by 2030.

Progress, however, has lagged ambition, with less than 20% of the restoration target having been reached so far. Meeting the 2030 targets will require that the current pace of land restoration increases to 8.2 million hectares annually, which will require €3.5 - 4.1 billion each year. Following on from this year’s 6^th EU - AU Summit, the EU-Africa Global Gateway Investment Package mobilises a broad support package to boost this crucial next phase of Africa’s Great Green Wall.

To support these efforts, the Africa Knowledge Platform now includes four new geospatial datasets that are relevant to the Great Green Wall Initiative:

1. The Sahelian transition boundaries, based on rainfall isohyets.
2. The breath of the Sahel, which represent the dynamic expansion and contraction of the Sahelian zone.
3. The boundaries of the Great Green Wall Initiative, as delineated by the FAO.
4. The land productivity dynamics in the Sahel based on remotely sensed vegetation greenness.

A digital StoryMap on carbon storage in Africa also includes information relevant to the Great Green Wall Initiative.

The next issue of this newsletter will focus on biodiversity. If you have participated in related work that would be relevant to users of the Africa Knowledge Platform, then we'd love to hear from you. Please get in touch by sending us and email to jrc-africa@ec.europa.eu.

The editorial team will make the final decision on what is included in future issues to the newsletter, but we welcome contributions that further science-based European policies on topics related to Africa.