The Food Systems Research Network for Africa (FSNet-Africa), a Research Excellence Project led by the University of Pretoria (UP) in collaboration with the University of Leeds and the Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN), recently hosted a breakout session at the 2022 Borlaug Dialogue. The breakout session, entitled Research and partnership for a sustainable African food system, demonstrated how research capacity development and boundary-spanning partnerships can be harnessed to identify and implement climate-smart, nutrition-sensitive, and poverty-reducing solutions for food and nutrition security.

Several experts in the field of food security and food systems joined the University of Pretoria’s experts, Prof Frans Swanepoel (Principal Investigator at FSNet-Africa) and Dr Elizabeth Mkandawire (FSNet-Africa Network and Research Manager) to discuss the role that the FSNet-Africa framework can play in transforming food systems in Africa.

Prof Swanepoel kicked off the session by explaining that “The goal of FSNet-Africa is to strengthen food systems research and the translation of evidence into interventions, using systems analytical research, designed and implemented in partnerships with a diverse set of food systems stakeholders”. To do this, the team produces context-relevant interdisciplinary research, by creating a two-year structured research opportunity for African early career researchers. FSNet-Africa works in six African countries, collaborating with ten universities and several Food Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN) nodes.

FSNet-Africa offers twenty early-career researchers an opportunity to conduct impact-focused interdisciplinary research related to African food systems, and to work with academic and practitioner mentors and researchers in the field. Dr Mkandawire says that the FSNet-Africa Fellowship aims to conduct research that helps to move beyond relevance to doing research that results in impact. The fellowship also aims to build the capacity of the next generation of research leaders in Africa, and to build equitable, sustainable partnerships across Africa, between disciplines, and between career phases and between academia and society.

Prof Claire Quinn, the co-director of FSNet-Africa from the University of Leeds, explains that as a mentor, she has the opportunity to network and build relationships with those involved on the ground in Africa. She provides her fellow with connections to researchers and practitioners who are working on similar projects in other parts of the world so that long-term relationships can be built and solutions can have a lasting impact. Dr Gloria Essifile also an FSNet-Africa mentor says that the fellowship is not an opportunity for the fellows but is also strengthening the capacity and networks of the mentors. The fellowship provides researchers with a range of resources that can be used at all career stages. The research teams that form part of the fellowship reflect a variety of research disciplines and provide different perspectives on the issues that the fellows are working on.

What makes this fellowship unique is that researchers are linked with active stakeholders, who form part of the team from the start. Generally, stakeholders are presented with research results and expected to use the research, but they are not part of the research process. The FSNet-Africa fellowship is changing this to ensure that the research that is being done can have a positive impact in the real world. Stakeholders can include people from the government, farmers, retailers and even people in the financial sector.

The fellows are embedded in a systems approach, which adequately covers all the issues that exist in African food systems. Prof. Julian May, a member of the FSNet-Africa acadmic leadership team from the University of the Western Cape, explains that it was essential to develop a framework specifically for Africa because African countries share a past that the rest of the world does not. Issues such as the persistence of short value chains, common property rights and decentralised social structures need to be considered in the design of frameworks. The FSNet-Africa framework takes a boundary-spanning approach which brings together the fellows that are involved in different areas of research that look at the range of collective action problems that characterise African food systems.

Two of the 2021 fellows are from UP, Dr Nokuthula Vilakazi and Dr Nobuhle Sharon Lungu. There are also several academics from UP that are mentoring and/or co-hosting the twenty fellows, including Prof Lize Korsten, Dr Marc Weigerif, Dr Selma Karuaihe, Prof Naushad Emmambux, Dr Colleta Gandidzanwa and Prof Riëtte de Kock among many others. These researchers play a key role in guiding the fellows through their research design and implementation of their projects.

The FSNet-Africa project is committed to making a difference in African food systems. The collaboration and opportunity that this programme provides to both the fellows and the mentors mean that the research being done has an impact on the food system.