We hope you’ve had a safe and good start to 2021.

At the end of 2020, we held our first FOCUS Africa stakeholder #workshop with the second day of the workshop focused on learning and applying the concepts behind Responsible Research & Innovation (#RRI).

FOCUS Africa is dedicated to developing sustainable, tailored climate services in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region for four sectors: agriculture and #foodsecurity, #water, #infrastructure and #energy.

To respond more effectively to the grand global challenges we face such as #climatechange, RRI brings a more society-centred approach to Research and Innovation and aims to develop innovations that are closer to real societal challenges, offering systemic solutions grounded in local considerations thanks to strong stakeholder engagement.  

RRI is at the heart of the design of the FOCUS Africa project and this first workshop was the opportunity to provide a framework to move in the direction of more Responsible R&I and to find ways to evaluate & monitor our collective progress. The virtual meeting started by an introduction on the RRI principles by @Yasmina and was followed by co-creative breakout activities by sector, facilitated by the LGI team: Yasmina, @Clara, @Cos, @Sam, @Niclette and @Motu. A special thank you to our sector representatives for their help during the workshop: @Dragana, @Nicolas, @Asmerom & @Katy, as well as @Jonathan for moderating. Thanks also to our project coordinator @Roberta for steering our ship and to the great logistical support from @Janice and @Josiane.

Finally, we thank all the partners for their great participation and look forward to what comes next!