The InPROVE project (Initiation du PROcessus de Validation des acquis de l’Expérience par l’enseignement supérieur en Algérie) aims to develop and implement a framework for the assessment of prior work experience (non-formal learning) as the basis for a partial or full validation of a university diploma in Algeria. The InPROVE consortium consists of the Ministry of Higher Education, six Algerian universities, two partners representing the Algerian socio-economic community and six European partners.The main outputs of InPROVE include:- guidelines describing a management structure able to support a Validation of Prior Experience (VPE) application, together with their access portal,- a methodology for evaluating VPE applications,- 15 educational programmes described in terms of business skills blocks.In addition, the project foresees and supports the introduction of:- a network of fully trained VPE counsellors, able to inform and support efficiently the candidates- a network of teachers trained in skills assessment,- a network of teachers able to transcribe educational programmes in terms of business skills blocks,The final objective of InPROVE is to perform, on the 15 formatted educational programmes, the experimentation of the whole developed structure and methodology by offering VPE opportunities to real candidates.The expected impacts of the project are:- for the Ministry of Higher Education, examples of fully reusable good practices regarding VPE, currently recognized as a key priority in the context of the specificities of the Algerian society,- for the Algerian universities, the availability of fully trained staff able to support another way of delivering diplomas while strengthening continuing education,- for the socio-economic sector, new opportunities to enhance the career development of their staff.

Population without access to electricity is set to increase again in 2020 after 6 years of decline in Africa. The number of people gaining access to electricity in Africa has increased greatly: the number of people without access to electricity dropped from almost 860 million in 2018 to 770 million in 2019, a record low in recent years . Nonetheless, past progress is being reversed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. In order to tackle this, the present proposal will demonstrate innovative, reliable and adapted sustainable energy solutions based on the valorization of biomass wastes from agriculture and the food industry through biomass gasification. REFFECT AFRICA will adapt and optimize these technologies to a wide variety of biomass wastes: olive mill residues, almond hulls and husks, millet, rice, sorghum or peanut wastes and sugarcane bagasse, among others locally available. Three full- scale demonstrators will be built in Morocco, Ghana and South Africa to consider both urbanized and rural contexts in Africa, on- and off-grid solutions, as well as different socio-economic backgrounds. The project will carry out comprehensive LCA and LCC of each supply chain and will consider the climate adaptation and mitigation potential of this technology compared to other technologies and solutions in the African social, economic and environmental contexts. REFFECT AFRICA will tackle the development of renewable energy sources, providing solutions for on-grid and off-grid communities, and their integration into the existing energy system. It will consider the generation of renewable energy, the transmission, and the use of storage systems.With the aim to closing all water- energy-food links, the project will work on obtaining biochar from the gasifier, and will be improved to provide a valuable fertilizer to local farmers. The demonstrators will include a robust but reliable water laboratory to provide their location with basic but often lacking testing services.