RE-thinking of approaches and toolkits for transdisciplinary INTEGRATEd assessment of climate-compatible energy strategies from the African Union through to the European Union

Scientific tools are widely applied across the EU and the AU to support strategic planning for climate-compatible development. They are used by national and local authorities, research institutes and civil society organisations, very often with the support of development partners, academia and consulting firms. They are an important part of the energy planning ecosystem. However, the scientific insights derived from these tools have not always supported the strategic energy planning process successfully. Sometimes uncoordinated and biased approaches to model design and application by the involved actors on the EU and AU side have led to poor reflection of country-specific social, economic, and environmental conditions (Gardumi et al., 2022). The result is often a lack ownership and credibility and thus limited uptake in planning and policymaking processes. In order to address this gap, the overall aim of RE-INTEGRATE is to establish within existing energy planning ecosystems across the AU and EU an enabling and non-exclusive environment for the sharing of knowledge, fit-to-context modelling toolkits and modelling expertise on climate-compatible development. RE-INTEGRATE addresses the need – expressed in the Work Programme - for fostering modelling approaches and expertise in the AU, which are not heavily reliant on the developed countries, by structurally enabling multi-lateral sharing of knowledge and research infrastructure. While doing so, it develops and tests fit-for-purpose 3E models in 8 AU contexts, building on local expertise and analysing climate-compatible development pathways.