SEACRIFOG sparks interest at the African Union in Addis Ababa

At the 6th November, the African Union Commission invited a group of scientists and consultants to the High Level Policy Dialogue on Science Technology and Innovation (HLPD on STI) stakeholder event in Addis Ababa. Myléne Ndisi by ICOS and Veronika Jorch by the Thünen Institute represented SEACRIFOG during the meeting, in group-discussions and with a poster.

During the meeting participants discussed among others, the need for more adaptation and mitigation measures in Africa, which need to be, based on knowledge about climate and greenhouse gases. It was pointed out that especially in-situ data for the understanding of the impact on and by land use are missing in Africa. The roadmap which SEACRIFOG is developing will lead to an improvement of the current low data level. Hans-Jörg Lutzeyer the directorate for science technology and innovation of the European Commission mentioned the SEACRIFOG inventory tool as a good example for a working database, containing data on measurement stations for greenhouse gases and weather. Cooperation with other networks notably the GMES and Africa and with other projects under the different HLPD working groups on food security and climate change was explored. Under the FNSSA partnership of the HLPD, a clustering exercise led by the LEAP4FNSSA project. SEACRIFOG as a project has been mapped as a key component of the AU-EU partnership on Food and Nutrition Security research that brings in the climate smart agriculture component with its proposal of an pan-African system for the observation of GHG's.

The next two days the delegates started the country commitments to support the different HLPD initiatives and showed a clear interest to follow keenly the progress of development and to make the most of the different resource tools available.