The African Union and the European Union alongside a number of implementing partners have launched the Consortium Europe-Africa on Research and Innovation for Food Systems Transformation.

The project brings together 22 partners from Europe and Africa covering a wide range of expertise and stakeholders (research, NGOs, donors, extension workers, etc.) involved in the field of food and nutritional security and sustainable agriculture.

The main objectives of CEA-FIRST are as follows:

1. Providing public access to an extensive platform of knowledge in food and nutrition security and sustainable agriculture.
2. Developing a robust methodology for analysing Research and Innovation (R&I) activities and priorities.
3. Supporting the update of the AU-EU R&I partnership roadmap.
4. Establishing operational and thematic research working groups.
5. CEA-FIRST will facilitate connections between the IRC and the AU-EU high-level political dialogue.
6. It will create a learning environment, including communication channels, to support multi stakeholder networks and to strengthen R&I coordination

CEA-FIRST will operationalise the International Research Consortium (IRC) as a long-term platform on food and nutrition security and sustainable agriculture (FNSSA) in line with the FNSSA Roadmap of the AU-EU High-Level Policy Dialogue (HLPD).