The Presidential Implementation Committee on Technology Transfer/Information Exchange between the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the Czech Republic is set to officially launch the Call for Public Proposals for the Delta-2 Programme on Wednesday, 18^th May, 2022. The Delta-2 Programme is a Bilateral Co-funding R&D Project under the agreement and the first major step toward achieving the goals of the bilateral cooperation, a practical steps toward diversifying the nation’s economy.

The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the Federal Government of Nigeria and the Czech Republic on Technology Transfer was signed in 2014 as a way of stimulating economic diversification in Nigeria through joint research and developments (R&Ds) projects. The implementing agencies for the MoU in the two countries are the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic (TA CR), for Czech Republic, and the National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI), for Nigeria.

The priority areas of the bilateral cooperation include Agricultural and Food Technology; Mining and Industrial Development and General Manufacturing for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) Development. Applied research projects, under this bilateral cooperation, will focus on specific outcomes leading to new findings, innovative solutions, skills and capacity development for the production of new, high-tech and significantly improved products, processes and services.

The main beneficiaries of the Delta-2 programme are the private sector companies, entrepreneurs, research and tertiary Institutions across Nigeria. Beneficiaries of the project funding are expected, amongst other things, to develop new products and services that would be commercialized by private sector companies to solve current challenges in the country. The overall goal is to diversify the economy of the country while creating opportunities for employment and wealth creation for the citizenry.