FS4Africa has recently formalised collaborations with a series of transformative initiatives to boost food safety, strengthen innovation, and enhance resilience across African food systems. These partnerships bring together diverse strengths, ranging from digital infrastructure and research excellence to local empowerment and climate-smart solutions, laying the groundwork for a more transparent, sustainable, and secure food future.

Empowering change with Oyo State

The partnership with three local governments in Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria, signals a bold move towards regionally anchored innovation. This agreement underscores the power of collaboration as it paves the way for initiatives that enhance food safety standards, strengthen local capacities, and foster public awareness. By combining international expertise with local leadership, FS4Africa aims to transform food systems and create impactful, sustainable solutions for food safety issues that affect public health and economic stability.

Unlocking innovation with Smart Droplets

FS4Africa finalised a collaboration with Smart Droplets, another EU-funded initiative focused on high-tech solutions for agriculture. While FS4Africa transforms local markets to ensure safe, sustainable food for all, Smart Droplets pioneers advanced tools such as AI, sensors, and digital twins to improve eco-friendly crop management. Together, the two projects aim to enhance food safety, increase productivity, and encourage sustainable agricultural practices. This partnership empowers local farmers, facilitates knowledge exchange, and drives impactful change in communities across the continent.

Transforming food systems with FCI4Africa

FCI4Africa promotes sustainable, climate-neutral, and health-conscious food systems, and the collaboration between the two EU-funded initiatives champions food safety, sustainability, and fair trade across Africa. This milestone made possible thanks to the two projects’ coordinating partner International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), underscores the power of synergy in tackling the multifaceted challenges in African food systems. The Memorandum of Understanding was signed at the IITA premises in Ibadan, Nigeria marking the start of a collaborative journey to enhance knowledge sharing, harmonise standards, and foster innovation through digitisation and open science.

A resilient future with FrontAg Nexus

The agreement with FrontAg Nexus strengthens FS4Africa’s resilience-oriented agenda by promoting climate-smart farming, local production, and regional integration. This partnership marks an important step toward enhancing food safety, sustainability, and resilience in agricultural systems, particularly in regions facing environmental and socio-economic challenges. By combining FS4Africa’s expertise in food safety and local market transformation with FrontAg Nexus’ innovative approaches in hydroponics, aquaponics, insect farming, and sustainable resource management, the two projects aim to improve food security & regional trade across African markets, to promote sustainable water, soil, and energy management, to engage local stakeholders to drive impactful, scalable solutions, and to explore joint activities, research projects, and knowledge-sharing initiatives.

Smart research, shared vision with INCiTiS-FOOD

The partnership with INCiTiS-FOOD focuses on innovation and knowledge exchange in food and nutrition security. With a shared vision of innovation and resilience, this collaboration opens the door to joint events, webinars, and knowledge exchange, leveraging FS4Africa’s expertise in food safety and INCiTiS-FOOD’s work on food and nutrition security. The two projects aim to foster impactful research, technology transfer, and practical solutions that benefit both industries and society.

Advancing safe and HealthyDiets4Africa

Through its alignment with HealthyDiets4Africa, FS4Africa reinforces its commitment to ensuring safe, nutritious, and traceable diets across the continent. United by a shared mission to transform African food systems, the two projects will work hand in hand to boost food safety and security, strengthen informal markets, and promote safe, traceable, and diversified food across the continent. By joining forces, the projects will build on complementary strengths to support safe, traceable, and authentic food value chains, to empower informal markets and scale innovative solutions, to advance evidence-based policies and community-driven approaches, and to reduce negative impacts on biodiversity, the environment, and public health.

Accelerating innovation with UP-RISE

UP-RISE, FS4Africa’s sister project, brings valuable research and field expertise in supporting informal markets and strengthening food governance. The agreement was officially signed at the World Mycotoxin Forum® in Salzburg, underscoring the global importance of our shared commitment to tackling food safety challenges across the African continent. This partnership builds a powerful framework for cooperation, ensuring that both projects align their strengths to share expertise and best practices in food safety and quality, to collaborate on joint initiatives, research, and capacity-building efforts, to strengthen knowledge exchange across formal and informal food systems, and to amplify impact through FS4Africa’s inclusion in the UP-RISE Accelerator Platform, co-creating solutions with actors from five AU Member States.

Africa–Asia cooperation through VODAN

The agreement with VODAN Africa & Asia advances cross-continental cooperation by fostering equitable data sharing and sustainable digital infrastructures. The two initiatives have officially signed a Memorandum of Understanding to strengthen collaboration, and support joint initiatives across Africa and Asia. This partnership marks a key step in advancing food safety, digital innovation, and sustainable development—particularly in underserved regions.

Strengthening food integrity with WATSON

The signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between FoodSafety4Africa and WATSON project marks the beginning of a promising collaboration focused on strengthening food safety, improving traceability, and combating food fraud—from local markets in Africa to global supply chains. By bringing together FS4Africa’s commitment to transforming food safety in Africa, especially within the informal sector, and WATSON’s cutting-edge framework for intelligence-based technologies, this alliance represents a step forward in protecting consumers, supporting stakeholders, and strengthening food governance systems globally. Through this partnership, both projects join forces to share knowledge, co-create impactful initiatives, and support a shared vision of a resilient, transparent, and sustainable food future.

Together, these collaborations illustrate FS4Africa’s commitment to forging purposeful alliances that contribute to safer, more inclusive, and more resilient food systems across Africa and beyond.