Within the RISE Africa Action Festival, ICLEI Europe will co-host the session “Transforming urban food systems: Unlocking the potential of open innovation in African cities” alongside EStà. The session is a part of the AfriFOODlinks project and aims to put the spotlight on open innovation and its role in transforming urban food systems.

The session will present insights into what open innovation can bring to urban food systems and offer concrete examples from Està of their work within AfriFOODlinks. Expert organisations and local government representatives will be invited to share their perspectives and experience on how cities can unlock the untapped potential of open innovation in Africa.

The hope is to empower session participants with a better understanding of an unfamiliar and underexplored topic - open innovation - and to see how through reframing public policies that shape interactions between institutions, enterprises and social actors, cities can create an enabling environment for open innovation to flourish.

The AfriFOODlinks project aims to strengthen the links between food systems stakeholders in cities across the continent and Europe. As a partner in the project, ICLEI Europe facilitates exchanges between African and European city stakeholders.

Register for the event here.