Project
STREAMING
With Africa’s growing population, youth unemployment remains a major challenge due to limited formal sector opportunities. Many young people enter the informal economy, often in unstable, low-quality jobs. The EU-funded STREAMING project aims to develop fair, healthy, and sustainable food systems across Africa by connecting research with practical application. Building on the Food Safety for Africa initiative, it strengthens policy recommendations to enhance resilience to climate change and improve Africa-Europe trade relations.
Introduction
The African continent, known for its diverse ecosystems and fertile land, plays a crucial role in global food systems. Despite its wealth of natural resources, the African food trade sector faces complex challenges that hinder its contribution to food security, economic growth, and poverty alleviation. These challenges, affecting both African and global food systems, are primarily driven by climate change, population growth, conflicts, and economic barriers. Inadequate logistics and limited market access within food value chains exacerbate food harvest loss. Cumbersome customs procedures, sanitary and phytosanitary standards, and inconsistent policies further fragment markets and restrict access for African producers. STREAMING aims to develop diverse strategies for achieving fair, healthy, and environmental-friendly food systems, with a direct impact on trade policy in both Africa and Europe. The project offers recommendations for improving policies, such as removing non-tariff barriers to trade between African farmers, businesses, and international markets. Through networking platforms, hubs, standardized data, digital solutions, and training programmes, STREAMING bridges academia and industry to promote sustainable food trade. It fosters innovation and entrepreneurship among diverse groups, including women, researchers, and farmers.
Project description
For efficient coordination, STREAMING is organised into six work packages (WPs). WP1, focusing on project management and coordination, will be led by HSWT and BAYFOR, ensuring smooth progress and acting as the interface to the Commission. WPs 2-4 address the three major thematic areas of STREAMING: sustainable food trade systems (WP2, UNIVGB), digitalisation for efficient trade relations (WP3, the INF group of Wageningen University), and Non-Tariff Measures (WP4, UAK). Activities in WP2 and WP3 will be supported by third-party contributions in innovation and knowledge transfer (WP5, HSWT). WP6 (WEBIN, Comprehensive Dissemination and Exploitation Framework) will primarily handle communication with target groups, the general public, and stakeholder engagement.
A major objective of STREAMING is to foster targeted connections between research (universities, research centres, incubators) and practice partners (farmers, founders, industry) working on similar topics in innovation teams. These teams will develop new, innovative practical solutions across the entire food value chain. The matching of research and practice partners will be facilitated through a communication platform (WP3) and workshops, particularly at African partner institutions UNIVGB, USSEIN, ARSI, and UFS. The innovation teams will receive the knowledge needed for innovation development via the STREAMING learning platform and intensive coaching from consortium partners or third parties.