Building on and expanding existing partnerships between Europe and Africa, the SESA project aims to support leapfrogging sustainable energy solutions while substituting fossil-fuel-based energy. Embracing a cross-sectoral, interdisciplinary and collaborative approach, the target is to mitigate climate change and avoid lock-in situations while improving access to sustainable energy under affordable, reliable conditions. To do so, the project supports solutions that harness the sustainable and promising opportunities already present on the African continent, such as the highest solar radiation in the world. It includes increasing the use of renewable energies and, supporting and scaling-up nascent technical and financial innovations in order to steer energy in selected African countries towards more sustainable pathways. Conditions for successful implementation and replication are set to enable long-term sustainability of the project.