The African Development Bank supports SUN Countries to scale up nutrition

The African Development Bank (AfDB) is exploring ways in which it can increase its support to SUN Countries through effective partnerships across the SUN Movement.  The African Development Bank (AfDB) recently announced its plans to increase its support to countries on nutrition as part of  the recent adoption of an action plan to transform African agriculture to eliminate extreme poverty, end hunger and malnutrition.  ‘Feeding Africa: An Action Plan for African Agricultural Transformation’ was adopted at a high level conference organized by the AfDB in Dakar, Senegal which ran from 21 to 23 October 2015. The action plan includes a work stream fully dedicated to nutrition and strongly features the importance of investing in nutrition for development.

At a High-Level Roundtable in Ghana in November 2015, organised by the Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition, AfDB President, Akinwumi Adesina, shared the ways in which malnutrition can be eliminated by changing the agriculture and food systems. At the event he said “Poorly fed people lead to poorly performing economies. UNICEF has estimated the annual cost of undernutrition in sub-Saharan Africa at $25 billion. Africa and Asia lose 11% of their GNP every year due to poor nutrition. The evidence is clear: boosting nutrition boosts the economy”.

The vision of the African Development Bank Human Capital Strategy (2014–2018) is to harness the potential of 1 billion Africans by building skills and promoting technologies to provide better jobs, ensure equal opportunities and increase workforce competitiveness. It is the operational framework for the Bank’s interventions in human capital in Africa and it underscores the human capital dimension in all core operational priority areas of the Bank’s Strategy for 2013–2022, emphasizing skills and technology as crucial for a productive workforce and competitive economies within an inclusive and green growth agenda. More about Human Capital Development can be found at the web page: African Development Bank Group – Human Capital Development.

Learn more about the African Development Bank at the African Development Bank Group website and re-visit the SUN Movement website to stay up to date with these developments.