Early-career researchers working on projects as part of the Leading Integrated Research for Agenda 2030 in Africa (LIRA 2030) programme met over three days from 17 to 19 February in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

The researchers shared their experiences in project implementation and sought to foster collaboration in tackling sustainability challenges across African cities.

As Principle Investigator of one of the LIRA 2030 projects, ACC’s Sylvia Croese was in attendance. According to Croese the focus of this year’s forum, hosted by the Ethiopian Academy of Sciences, was on writing, with the first two days of the forum consisting of a Research Writing Workshop with interactive lectures and sessions aimed at sharing experiences and challenges involved in writing, publishing as well as disseminating trans-disciplinary research. The last day was dedicated to project matchmaking, which was aimed at fostering collaboration across the different projects that have been funded through the LIRA programme over the past years.

Much of the research for Croese’s project ‘Co-producing urban knowledge in Angola and Mozambique through community-led data collection: towards meeting SDG 11’ was completed in 2019, which culminated with a policy forum in Luanda in October and a SDG localisation training session in Maputo, hosted in collaboration with the National Association of Mozambican Municipalities and the global United Cities and Local Governments Association in November 2019.