International Innovation Hub West Africa: a regional initiative to transform food systems in West Africa

How can scientific research become more attuned to the needs of agricultural and agrifood entrepreneurs in West Africa? This is one of the challenges being addressed by the International Innovation Hub West Africa (IIH WA) project.

The project is the brainchild of several academic, scientific and institutional partners and its aim is to strengthen support structures for entrepreneurship and innovation, which serve as authentic communication channels between scientific knowledge and economic stakeholders. It seeks to promote the emergence of sustainable innovations capable of addressing the challenges of food security, agricultural transformation, climate resilience, and job creation for young people.

Research as a driving force behind agrifood innovation

Unlike many initiatives focusing directly on start-ups, IIH WA becomes involved earlier in the process, strengthening innovation ecosystems. For instance, the project backs Entrepreneurship and Innovation Support Structures (SAEI), which play an essential role in commercially developing research results and supporting project leaders.

This initiative was officially launched at the project’s first regional workshop, held from 23 to 27 March 2026 at the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, Abomey-Calavi University (FSA/UAC), Benin.

It was attended by researchers, universities, support organizations, entrepreneurs, students and technical partners from several West African countries, united in a shared goal: building more innovative, inclusive and sustainable food systems.

One of the key events of this meeting was the launching of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Support Structure mapping, intended to identify the main innovation stakeholders in the partner countries, gain a clearer picture of their areas of focus, their needs and their support capacities, whilst also fostering collaboration on a regional scale.

The discussions also identified several common challenges:  limited access to funding, difficulty in commercializing scientific results, the technical support needed by entrepreneurs, and the lack of bridges existing between research and the private sector.

For Lisa Blangy, Deputy Director of Research Impact and Marketing at CIRAD, “Innovation doesn’t just spring from a good idea. It evolves from a meeting between scientific knowledge, local needs, entrepreneurs and the organizations that support them. This is precisely the goal of the IIH WA project: building bridges to bring about sustainable solutions that benefit African food systems”.

Meeting food system challenges through innovation

In addition to strengthening innovation structures, IIH WA endeavours to address the actual needs expressed by food system stakeholders.

Multi-stakeholder consultation forums were organized for that purpose in Benin, Ivory Coast and Senegal. The meetings were attended by researchers, entrepreneurs, professional bodies, support organizations, public institutions and technical partners, to identify the main challenges faced on the ground and define the project’s priorities for action.

In Ivory Coast, the consultation forum held in April brought out several major challenges: access to scientific knowledge, digital innovation, agrifood processing, youth entrepreneurship, commercialization of research results, and food system resilience.

By taking this participatory approach, the project’s actions are fashioned from the realities expressed by the stakeholders themselves, while taking into account the specificities of each national context.

The project also draws on existing innovation initiatives. The participants at the regional workshop in Benin visited the Biovalor agrifood technology platform, supported by Institut Agro and CIRAD, along with the Technology Transfer Office of the National Water Institute.

All this illustrates how research results can be converted into solutions of benefit to economic stakeholders. By supporting agrifood processing projects and the promotion of local products, these initiatives help to strengthen agricultural value chains, create new economic opportunities, and make food supply chains more competitive.

A regional initiative that is gaining momentum …

Beyond the activities undertaken in each partner country, the IIH WA project is gradually helping to establish a true regional innovation ecosystem working for agricultural and food transition in West Africa.

The networking of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Support Structures (SAEI), engaged in at the project’s outset, is now one of the main drivers of this momentum. By fostering exchanges of experience, expertise sharing and the creation of partnerships between countries, IIH WA is strengthening the capacities of stakeholders who support entrepreneurs and facilitate the commercial development of research results.

This regional cooperation will continue at the next regional workshop to be held in Yamoussoukro, Ivory Coast, from 28 September to 2 October 2026, coordinated by ESA-INP-HB. The meeting will enable partner organizations to share their practices, further their collaboration and consolidate the innovation support mechanisms developed under the project.

…and expanding continent-wide

However, IIH WA’s ambitions go beyond West Africa alone. On 8 May 2026, in the wings of the Africa Forward Summit held in Nairobi, a workshop was attended by several partners from East Africa, including the University of Nairobi, ILRI, CIAT-Bioversity, as well as the Iringa, Sokoine and Nelson Mandela universities in Tanzania. This meeting marked an initial step towards creating a future International Innovation Hub East Africa, inspired from West African experience.

The project has also gained increasing visibility through various forums for dialogue and experience-sharing. A televised interview with the Senegalese entrepreneur Siny Samba, the founder of Lionceau (a company producing baby food from 100% locally-sourced ingredients), and Professor Joseph Bassama from Gaston Berger University helped shed light on the challenges of innovation and entrepreneurship in support of African food systems.

In addition, the approach embraced by IIH WA was presented at the TSARA Initiative’s Science Days at Gaston Berger University, and at USSEIN, the University of Nairobi and CIRAD. These events helped to promote the training-research-innovation-entrepreneurship continuum as the driving force behind food system transformation and innovation ecosystem development in Africa.

By building sustainable bridges between research, innovation and entrepreneurship, IIH WA is thus laying the foundations for a regional community of stakeholders with the ability to support agricultural and food transformations in West Africa, whilst paving the way for new continent-wide cooperation.