Nutrition Int, Amref Health Africa sign deal to fight malnutrition in Africa

Kenya is among nine African countries set to benefit from a Ksh33 million (418,000 Canadian Dollars) investment after Amref Health Africa and Nutrition International ─ through its Nutrition Leverage for Transformation (NLIFT) model, formalized a partnership intended to provide nutrition benefits to communities across the countries in Africa where Amref Health Africa currently works.

The investment will reach up to 10 million direct and indirect beneficiaries, including adolescent girls, adult women, children and health workers in Kenya, Ethiopia, Malawi, Tanzania, Senegal, South Africa, South Sudan, Uganda and Zambia.

The partnership will pursue the integration of nutrition education and interventions into existing Amref Health Africa programs, ensuring that more people across the continent have access to important nutrition information and interventions, thereby doubling chances to improve their health status.

This collaboration ultimately combines the strengths of two organizations to improve the reach and delivery of health and nutrition interventions. Amref Health Africa has an extensive network across the continent, effectively delivering health services to the most vulnerable. Yet nutrition is not always included in its programs. On the other hand, Nutrition International is often challenged to reach out to school girls, teenagers and young women with critical nutrition interventions. By joining forces, Amref Health Africa and Nutrition International can provide and scale up effective nutrition interventions to those who need them most.

“For more than 60 years, we’ve been focused on ensuring access to health care for the most vulnerable and hard-to-reach communities in Africa. Partnering with Nutrition International to incorporate nutrition into our programs means better health for the communities we work with every day,” said Dr. Githinji Gitahi, Group CEO, Amref Health Africa. “Partnerships like these are essential for the global Sustainable Development Goals and Universal Health Coverage to become a reality in Africa.”

“This is an example of two organizations doing development differently,” said Joel Spicer, President and CEO of Nutrition International. “By breaking down silos and collaborating across sectors, we can build on each other’s strengths to deliver interventions that are more accessible and more effective. This means more children are able to grow to be healthy and more women and girls are able to reach their full potential.”

In the short-term, the collaboration will look to scale up Amref Health Africa’s nutrition capabilities in its existing outreach efforts through Nutrition International’s nutrition expertise. A Nutrition International Senior Technical Advisor seconded to Amref Health Africa will work with Amref Health Africa staff to create a comprehensive nutrition mapping report, assess Amref Health Africa staff knowledge and capacity, and produce an organizational nutrition strategy. This strategy will identify actions to be taken to integrate high-impact nutrition interventions into existing health programs.

Nutrition Leverage and Influence for Transformation (NLIFT) is a pioneering initiative led by Nutrition International that seeks to integrate nutrition interventions into existing development programs, platforms or networks that do not already focus on nutrition. With a 25 million dollar anchor investment provided by the Government of Canada through Global Affairs Canada, NLIFT collaborates with exciting new partners like Amref Health Africa, in health, education, agriculture and other newcomers to the nutrition landscape.