The economic crisis and pandemic in South Mediterranean and sub-Saharan countries have put the HEIs in a challenge to accommodate for the new requirements of online teaching. The RL4Eng project aims to improve the quality of higher education in third countries and make it more relevant into the today’s digital transformation world through establishing Remote and Virtual Laboratories for Teaching and Training Engineering Students to modernize the current teaching approaches and improve the digital and entrepreneurial capacities of both students and teachers in South Mediterranean and Sub-Saharan HEIs. The project’s contribution to the priorities of the call includes the digital transformation under which digital education is the focus of the project. Online teaching for laboratories has been implemented in EU countries with successful outcomes. The involvement of different European Universities will help integrate good practices and minimise potential risks in implementing the RL4Eng project. South Mediterranean HEIs have identified the necessity of training with numerous initiatives available in the European system. Few Research is available on the effective delivery of remote labs and take-home labs. The project involves several workpackages in efforts made to elevate the knowledge of remote labs and take-home labs in the partners institutions via capacity building for students, staff and faculty and share of experiences. A remote lab will be established in each country of the partners institutions and a take-home lab will be established in each HEI of the partner countries. The very nature of remote labs, and take-home labs makes them sustainable and easily scalable as they becomes part of the university structure and receives part of its budget. Moreover, the nature of the remote labs makes them sustainable as they are accessible from everywhere and could be used for both teaching and for research.

The EWA-BELT project aims at developing SI of agriculture productions in organic, agroforestry and mixed crop and livestock farming systems in 38 study areas of 6 countries belonging to East (Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania) and West (Burkina Faso, Ghana, Sierra Leone) Africa. The research activities, carried out in Farmer Field Research Units (FFRU), will address areas including marginalized and/or abandoned lands and existing agricultural lands to increase their yield potential. Through integrated participative researches, innovative tools (FFRU, ICT, Integrated Pest Disease Management - IPDM) and identification and dissemination of best practices, all countries will be linked into an interregional East-West African BELT able to reinforce SI in agriculture. The project will enhance the current scientific knowledge on the adaptation of new and improved traditional crops in different agroecosystems and the impacts of traditional agricultural practices on soil health in terms of nutrients, water retention and organic matter content. EWA-BELT will also investigate the introduction of innovative and appropriate plant protection technologies in the IPDM for key crops and the identification of a set of indicators to be used in the assessment of the SI approach impacts taking into account environmental health and, synergically, economic and social aspects. The project will introduce highly innovative cost-affordable technologies, to be easily used in the field by unskilled personnel. Technical benefits provided by all implemented techniques will be then evaluated for their economic effect on farmers and along the value chain. EWA-BELT will address gender issues and empowering women at every stage of the process. Finally, to maximize the impact, project results (in progress and final achievements) will be yearly disseminated during the “Infopoverty U.N. Conference”, one of the U.N. highest-level initiatives to elaborate strategies and design solutions towards SI.

This project aims at fostering capacity building in the field of Smart Grids by the development of a harmonized, modular curriculum. The selection of partner countries considers the different stages of a technology transfer in the field of Smart Grid in Africa to be able to use synergies.In Tanzania, the provision of reliable and affordable energy to consumers is listed as one important goal to ensure growth and reduction of poverty. The Smart Grid concept aims at improving environmental sustainability, efficiency, quality, and stability of energy supply. Thus, it has to be expected that Smart Grids will also be introduced in African countries to ensure a successful development of power management. In South Africa as an emerging nation, this process is already ongoing. A successful technology transfer requires to build capacities to find, absorb, and use existing technologies and to enhance them according to local needs and conditions. The Smart Grid requires knowledge from different disciplines such as power supply, information technology, and economics; new risks to security must be handled, and privacy as a human right has to be considered. Hence, an interdisciplinary approach for capacity building in this field is an important challenge. Existing courses of study at the partner institutions - distinguished research and teaching institutions in their countries - cover important aspects like power system modelling or energy storage, but lack the coherent structure of Smart Grids. Envisioned outcomes of this project are new, interdisciplinary master courses implemented at partner institutions in Africa, running laboratories, online courses, and an improved networking between the partners. Teaching staff and students of target institutions will benefit from the improved level of HEI and an increased employability of graduants. The availbale online material will support a wide dissemination of the project results within the concerned African countries and abroad.

FLOWERED objective is to contribute to the development of a sustainable water management system in areas affected by fluoride (F) contamination in water, soils and food in the African Rift Valley countries (Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania), thus to improve living standards (environmental, health and food security) of its population. FLOWERED aims to study, test and implement innovative defluoridation technologies for drinking and irrigation water that will mainly operate at small village scale and to develop an integrated, sustainable and participative water and agriculture management at a cross-boundary catchment scale. On the basis of the complexity of the issue of water de-fluoridation, the proposed scientific approach in FLOWERED is based on a detailed knowledge of the geological and hydrogeological setting that controls contamination of water that constitute the prerequisite for the implementation of a sustainable water management and for the proposal of sustainable and suitable strategies for water sanitation and agricultural system. Innovative agricultural practices will be assessed, aiming to mitigate the impacts of F contamination of water and soil on productivity of selected food and forage crops and dairy cattle health and production. The development of an innovative and shared Geo-data system will support the integrated, sustainable and participative management system. FLOWERED, focusing on innovative technologies and practices and taking into account local experiences, will implement an integrated water and agriculture management system and will enable local communities to manage water resources, starting from using efficient defluoridation techniques and applying sustainable agricultural practices. The integrated approaches improve knowledge for EU partners, local researchers, farmers and decision makers. The Project through the involvement of SMEs will strengthen the development co-innovative demonstration processes as well as new market opportunities.