Despite a long-standing collaboration between Africa and Europe on research and innovation (R&I) in agri-food systems, investments have been fragmented across small projects, leaving gaps in funding, knowledge exchange, and capacity development efforts. The focus on climate change adaptation is also relatively new. Cecilia D Alessandro and Hanne Knaepen provide an overview of the state-of-play of adaptation-related R&I in agri-food systems and outline three conditions to achieve tangible success for all.