Transforming research results into innovative solutions that can benefit the population in Africa – that is the common goal of 6 projects recently honoured in Cape Town.

Participants of the GAIIA award ceremony 2022 © Ingnus Dreyer | SCPS Photos

The winners of the 2nd 'German-African Innovation Incentive Award' (GAIIA) of 2020 and their German cooperation partners were honoured by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) during an Innovation Summit of the World Association of Industrial and Technological Research Organizations (WAITRO). The six researchers from Africa (Ghana, Morocco, South Africa, Tunisia, Uganda) received the incentive award for their excellent research results with high ex-ploitation potential.

The honouring by Ministerialrat Erik Hansalek on 14 November 2022 made up for the award ceremony in 2020, which had to be cancelled due to the pandemic. During the two-day summit in Cape Town, GAIIA-awardees from 2018 and 2020 presented their project results and compared notes with research and innovation stakeholders from over 35 countries. Their projects cover the topics of agriculture, sustainable resource use as well as health research, communication tech-nologies, materials research and energy supply.

With the incentive award, the BMBF strengthens innovative research in Africa and supports the transformation of research results into application-oriented solutions that can benefit the population in Africa. The award was first presented by the then Federal Minister Anja Karliczek in 2018 and has since enabled a total of 10 German-African research projects to be realised. The aim of the meetings in Cape Town was for the project consortia to network with each other and with more than 140 international participants present, whose projects address global challenges and contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals.