InnoFoodAfrica establishes an African innovation platform that can steer the outcomes beyond a single country and a single value chain. The platforms provide peer support for small farmers and SMEs, to enable compliance market and supply chain demands such as GMP and maintenance of quality control parameters.  Thus platforms are key exchange points to share best practices and innovative solutions among African stakeholders contributing to the wider objective of the EU/Africa FNSSA partnership.

InnoFoodAfrica Innovation Platform has the following characterstics:

• Virtual
• Maintains the InnoFood Africa toolbox
• InnoFoodAfrica partners are technology transfer units (form national innovation platform that will seek technology transfer opportunities)
• Platform provides support for SHFs and SMEs in compliance to regulation adn market requirements through consultancy

Innovation Platform Objectives

• Advocate the interests of the platform members to decision makers.
  • Infrastructure and policy development (Improve value chain functionality)
  • National of international market
• Undertake collective promotion of the goods produced by the platform members
  • Local and foreign consumer markets (Market access and facilitation)
• Set up food quality and safety standards in a collective manner
  • Conforming to regulations, certification, credibility
• Driver for innovation: Identify research and development activities productivity and marketing efficiency.
• Gathering and disseminating local market information for the benefit of all members

The main goals of innovation management within the InnoFoodAfrica Project are:

• To ensure that the innovations with business potential are identified and developed further to meet market needs
• To identify innovation developed and applied in one of the project’s country/VC that have the potential to be successfully replicated and/or adapted to different African countries or contexts