Current African city region food systems fail to deliver food and nutrition security (FNS), health, and environmental sustainability. INCiTiS-FOOD develops scientifically underpinned circular agri-food technologies and practices, suitable for African cities. The context specific socio-technological use cases of INCiTiS-FOOD address the prevalent deficiency of animal sourced foods, vegetables, and fruits. Hydroponics, aquaponics, and insect farming hold great promise because they require limited land, water, energy, wealth and reduce waste. Hydroponics and aquaponics infer soilless, circular vegetable and fish farming enterprises. Using an interdisciplinary approach, inclusive and scalable business models are developed for these enterprises, contributing to thriving and collaborative communities. This circular food system thinking improves FNS, delivers safe, affordable, nutritious, and healthy food, reduces waste and the environmental footprint in African cities. INCiTiS-FOOD follows a multi-actor approach for co-design and co-creation of circular agri-food innovations and business models, involving 8 city Living Labs (LLs) in 6 countries from 3 African regions (East: Kenya; West: Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone; Central: Cameroon, Gabon). The project aims for its innovations and businesses to attain a technological, societal, and business readiness level of TRL-7, SRL-7, and BRL-5, respectively. INCiTiS-FOOD agri-food innovations and business models will be widely adopted because their research and innovation maturity are proven by a large-scale demonstration as part of the Cascade Fund (1,000,000€). International ecosystem building is promoted by the digital INCiTiS- FOOD Platform on SmartAgriHubs.eu to support African innovation actors. In strengthening resilience, inclusiveness, and FNS, INCiTiS-FOOD guides policy transformation by adhering to the EU Taxonomy Regulation and Milan Urban Food Policy Pact. The consortium is constituted with the EU-Africa dialogue in mind.

Identifying opportunities and challenges for sustainable circular city region food systems in Africa by mapping the local innovation potential for food production technologies and practices as well as midstream food business opportunities. Reviewing existing approaches for energy efficient, protein rich, and healthy foods. WP1 will

1. conduct city region food system analyses in 8 cities and towns (Kenya: Nairobi & Nakuru; Ghana: Tamale; Nigeria: Lagos & Ibadan; Sierra Leone: Moyamba; Cameroon: Bamenda; Gabon: Franceville) and 3 African regions: East, West, Central.
2. identify the innovative ecosystem potential for co-creation and knowledge sharing;
3. 10 D6.1 Project Management Plan validate a set of new, clearly defined, gender responsive use cases and their circular characteristics;
4. conceptualise the WEFE Nexus of the selected use cases.

WP2 aims to

1. develop agri-food technologies and practices with a TRL-7 & SRL-#7, increased degree of circularity, reduced environmental footprint, and improved food yield and safety. The focus will be on ‘low to medium tech’ solutions that use locally available resources (materials, crafts, etc.) and service streams (mobile apps, skills, etc.);
2. transform LLs into local incubators and accelerators of innovation (i.e., competence centres) that will be active beyond the project duration;
3. develop viable prototypes, test them by deploying initial minimum valuable products (MVPs) into their operational environment, measure their performance, receive feedback, iteratively arrive at better-fit MVPs in order to enable the large-scale demonstration phase funded through the Cascade Fund (WP3).

Oriented towards external establishment of INCiTiS-FOOD and third-party, strategic engagement, WP5 aims to:

1. Set, deploy, evaluate, and update an effective dissemination, communication, and exploitation plan;
2. Introduce the project to targeted communities and foster EU-AU partnerships;
3. Support community engagement and expansion of INCiTiS-FOOD agri-food technologies and practices through 2 international Open Calls resulting in financial support for third-parties (FSTP).

Oriented towards the coordination and management of INCiTiS-FOOD, WP6 aims to:

1. Ensure effective project management and coordination, including legal issues, reporting, quality management, day-to- day and sound financial management;
2. Assess, monitor, and manage risks;
3. Ensure proper data management, open science and protection of intellectual property rights (IPR);
4. Ensure ethical compliance, equality of gender and cultural respect;
5. Act as central point of contact for the EC.