The combined impact of COVID-19, the climate crisis, and the war in Ukraine has exposed how vulnerable our food systems are. Over 3 billion people cannot afford a healthy diet, 2 billion people are deficient in micronutrients, and more than 800 million are going hungry. Where did we go so wrong?
The fact is we were seeing the warning signs during the pandemic when global movement came to a halt, and local value chains were not strong enough to cope with the need. Nutrition was not getting the prominence and resources it needed.
At Nutrition for Growth in 2013, over $4 billion was pledged to tackle undernutrition, and $19 billion in complementary nutrition-sensitive investments between 2013 and 2020. In 2021 more than $27 billion was committed to addressing global malnutrition. We definitely need funds to solve this problem and hence it’s great to see global leaders step up and billions being pledged for nutrition. However, how we spend this money will determine if we have built more sustainable and resilient systems to prevent future shocks.
It’s not all bad, however, at least nutrition now has the world’s attention. We must act now — but the solution cannot be just more money to do the same things we have done for decades. We need to act urgently and differently.
Local entrepreneurs: The agents of change
One key area that we are missing is investing in local entrepreneurs at the grassroots level. As Daphne Ewing-Chow, an environment writer who focuses on food and agriculture, recently wrote in Forbes: “Entrepreneurs are key to sustainable nutritious food — but they need help.” We need to invest in them so that they have resources, training, and opportunities to deliver sustainable change. These entrepreneurs do not need big money. Most of them don’t have assets or the necessary paperwork to apply for loans, and it’s even worse when it comes to local women entrepreneurs, as they hardly own any assets themselves. When empowered, they can become change agents.
Take the case of Dysmus, a young entrepreneur from Kenya. He started a local enterprise that has pioneered mobile cold storage units powered by renewable energy to help rural smallholder farmers reduce post-harvest loss. In many low- and middle-income countries, post-harvest losses are as high as 80% and cold storage is virtually nonexistent. His pay-as-you-store system allows farmers to pay as little as $0.10.
Entrepreneurship investment: Small money, big impact
Sight and Life, a Swiss-based organization that specializes in innovative solutions to tackle malnutrition, is on a mission to close the nutrition gap in the world. Investing in local entrepreneurs is at the core of its work. For years it has been conducting elevator pitch contests for local entrepreneurs. Dysmus and many similar entrepreneurs applied to the contest and got a seed fund and basic training to build their business model.
However, the elevator pitch contest was discontinued due to fund availability. It’s important that we keep investing in small local entrepreneurs through training and seed funding if we want sustainable local change. Big ideas and big investments will only come from them. They will drive sustainable change, not just locally but globally.
Recently, with much thanks to a small investment from Children’s Investment Fund Foundation and Eleanor Crook Foundation, Sight and Life has started the first Harvard Business School-led entrepreneurship training program for food systems. Participants will learn to identify opportunities of disruption, build robust business plans and learn how to test their ideas and scale up their business. Young entrepreneurs from LMICs across Africa and Asia were invited to submit their business plans for innovations in food systems to avail of scholarship to the course from Sight and Life. The response was overwhelming and over 500 applications were received for the January 2023 course. Due to limited fund availability, only 35 got full scholarships and around 100 were offered a part fee waiver. The rest are self-paid. It’s a small initiative but a step in the right direction. Dysmus has also applied to this course.
What the world needs today is taking science-based solutions to scale through local leadership and entrepreneurship. Decolonization of public health is a realization that almost all of us agree on today. The question is: Are we ready to invest where needed?
For more information on the work of Sight and Life, write to SALcommunications@sightandlife.org
About the authors
Dr. Sufia Askari
Dr. Sufia Askari is the managing director of Sight and Life. She is a medical doctor and a globally recognized public health strategist with almost two decades of experience in policy, technical support, and research, focusing on maternal, newborn, and child health; immunization; nutrition; and food security. She believes in breaking silos to put the mother and child at the center of solutions. Her work with organizations such as UNICEF, Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has given Sufia the opportunity to lead, design, and implement sustainable nutrition solutions in several countries. She is currently based in London.
Kalpana Beesabathuni
Kalpana Beesabathuni is the global lead for Sight and Life's technology and entrepreneurship work. At Sight and Life, Kalpana advances game-changing business solutions, products, and technologies in low-income contexts across several countries. Working with farmers and entrepreneurs from grassroots to large enterprises, she ensures that affordable nutrition solutions reach the most vulnerable. Previously, Kalpana worked in many multicultural and science-driven contexts at Nestle, PATH, and DSM in product, technology, and business model innovation and entrepreneurship in agriculture, food, nutrition, global health, water, and renewable energy sectors.
