It operates in a context where African agriculture faces multiple, interconnected challenges. These include climate change, biodiversity loss, soil degradation, food insecurity, and rapid population growth.
Agroecology is increasingly recognized as a promising pathway for transformation. However, scaling agroecological approaches depends on generating collective knowledge and translating this knowledge into policy, investment, and innovation processes at scale.
At the same time, several challenges remain. Fragmentation across projects, weak links between research and policy, and limited mechanisms for collective learning reduce the ability of initiatives such as DeSIRA LIFT+ to achieve systemic impact.
This raises a key question: how can the DeSIRA LIFT+ facility effectively strengthen coherence, synergies, collective learning, and policy engagement across a diverse portfolio of agroecological innovation projects?
DeSIRA LIFT+ mobilizes around €100 million, with additional contributions from EU Member States, and builds on its predecessor.
Supporting learning and collaboration across the DeSIRA+ community
Funded by the European Commission and implemented by Agrinatura, the DeSIRA LIFT+ facility adopts a service-oriented approach. It combines community facilitation, support to policy dialogue, and knowledge generation.
It operates through two main service areas. The first focuses on strengthening partnerships, communities of practice, and policy engagement among DeSIRA+ implementers and African institutions. The second focuses on developing integrated Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) and Knowledge Management Systems (KMS), together with cross-cutting analyses on strategic topics such as scaling agroecological innovations and bio-solutions.
Methodologically, the approach is based on co-design processes and demand-driven needs assessments. It also relies on mobilizing targeted expertise (non-key experts) to produce actionable knowledge.
Early insights highlight several important elements. First, the need to align narratives on agroecological transition with broader policy priorities, such as productivity, soil health, and investment. Second, the importance of using existing policy spaces and African partner organizations as entry points for influence. Third, the value of fostering collective learning through structured knowledge systems. And fourth, the need to address scaling not only as a technical challenge, but as a broader systemic process involving finance, capacities, and enabling environments.
The co-construction of priorities with African partners has also proven critical to ensure ownership and relevance.
