CAAST-Net bringing Europe and Africa together

(08.01.2009)

During this year, three European trans-national INCO-Net projects connected to the EU’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) have started in Finland. One of these, CAAST-Net, is coordinated by UniPID, the Finnish Universities’ Partnership for International Development.

The coordinator of the joint EU-African CAAST-Net project (Network for the Coordination and Advancement of sub-Saharan Africa-EU Science & Technology Cooperation), researcher Tuija Tiihonen, says that CAAST-Net’s three first meetings this year have been successful events held in good spirit.

The ultimate objective is for the four-year CAAST-Net project to provide chances for Finnish research groups, universities and possibly also the business community to participate in Afro-European research projects.

Towards concrete calls

CAAST-Net’s inaugural meeting was held in February in Uganda, the next one was in Rwanda in July and the third in the autumn in Lisbon.

The purpose of the Afro-European project is to establish a new type of networking between the two continents in both old and new fields of research. In addition to that, CAAST-Net also organises many different seminars and other events. Healthcare questions, for example, have been prominent at these occasions.

At present, the consortium has 18 partners, ten from Africa and eight from EU Member States.

“The project has started extremely well after a little initial puzzlement.  The working groups are now operating in a well-functioning environment. But there is still a long way to go in CAAST-Net, before we know what kind of concrete research calls European and African countries can in the end do together,” Tiihonen says.

She is a researcher at the Healthcare Information Systems Research and Development Unit at the University of Kuopio. Research questions have interested her ever since her undergraduate days.

UniPID represents Finland

UniPID, a network of 14 Finnish universities, is involved in the CAAST-Net working groups 4 and 5 with a budget of 45,000 euros.

The starting point for UniPID, a network focusing on sustainable development and development work, is the principle of institutional partnership approved at the Sustainable Development Summit in Johannesburg. The network is coordinated by the University of Jyväskylä and funded by the Finnish Ministry of Education.

The network’s approach to the CAAST-Net project is multidisciplinary. “Our mission in CAAST-Net includes organising training for local counsellors. In Finland, these counsellors are at the Academy of Finland, for example”.

Tuija Tiihonen is the only representative of the academic community in CAAST-Net. The other partners are from the governments of each country, chiefly different ministries.

At the moment, CAAST-Net’s entire EU budget is 3 million euros.

In the opinion of Tiihonen, future joint research projects must focus on genuine and real needs in Africa. “Finland could provide training in nutrition and user-friendly communication technology. Food problems are a burning issue in Africa, and diabetes, for example, is increasing on the continent at great speed.”

The Finnish education system has also been a constant focus of attention at CAAST-Net meetings. “I’m being asked about it all the time”.

Much activity in Kenya and Rwanda

What is essential for CAAST-Net is that its other project coordinator comes from Africa, Kenya to be precise. “Rwanda too is currently playing a key role in the project”, says Tiihonen.

Relations between Africa and Europe have long been strained by old colonial history. “Finns have nothing to do with that, so for us cooperation is easy”.

Text: Tiina Ruulio