Africa’s nutrition drive attracts $82m worth of investment opportunity

The quest to tackle Africa’s malnutrition challenges and ensure that households across the continent have access to affordable nutritious food has attracted $82 million worth of investment opportunity.

The Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), a Swiss Foundation, and Royal DSM –a purpose-led global science-based company in nutrition, health and sustainable living –are co-hosting this drive to generate greater investments to improve nutrition in Africa.

The investment opportunity which is currently being explored by over 60 fast-growing small and medium (SMEs) enterprises across the continent, often faced by the challenges of accessing affordable finance, would help in addressing the continents malnutrition problems.

“Malnutrition is a massive problem in Africa,” says Lawrence Haddad, executive director, GAIN, who was awarded the World Food Prize yesterday at the ongoing first Nutrition Africa Investor Forum in Nairobi, Kenya.

“Businesses have to be part of the solution for malnutrition in Africa. The big problem most businesses face, especially the small and medium-sized is that they lack access to finance,” Haddad says.

“This is the first real effort within Africa to make it easier for businesses to provide nutritious food by making it more readily available, affordable and accessible,” he adds.

While it is easy for large companies to attract investments, it is the missing middle for the small and medium growing businesses – that find it difficult to attract investment, experts.

To address this, the first Nutrition Africa Investor Forum was held to meet this challenge by hosting a platform for over 60 companies from across Africa to connect with investors.

Opening the forum, Jakaya Kiwkete, Former President of Tanzania and a leading member of the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement working to end malnutrition across the world, encouraged greater public, private and third sector collaboration to address this pressing challenge for Africa, commenting.

“The nutrition agenda is a key driver of development. Dealing effectively with malnutrition and its attendant problems is a cardinal development imperative,” Kiwkete says.

Highlighting the importance of unlocking investments across the nutrition value chain, Fokko Wientjes, vice president, Nutrition in Emerging Markets says “With 30-40 percent stunted children in Africa there is an urgent need to make nutritious foods widely available, affordable but most importantly aspirational in the eyes of the consumer.”

As part of this work, the GAIN also partnered with the UN World Food Programme to hold the first SUN Business Network Pitch Competition on the continent.

The finals, held at the forum, saw 21 companies showcasing their work to tackle nutrition following national competitions in Nigeria, Tanzania, Mozambique, Malawi, Ethiopia, Kenya and Zambia involving 450 businesses.

Josephine Okojie, Nairobi