Meet Naguti Scovia, founder of ABBA Quality Foods. Her journey into food entrepreneurship began with a deeply personal challenge: she gave birth to an underweight child. Unable to afford hospital-recommended nutrition products, Scovia innovated her own nutrient-dense mix of rice, millet, and silverfish. This simple yet powerful solution enabled her child’s remarkable recovery.

In the community where she lived, there were mother who also had children who were suffering from severe malnutrition. As a mother who underwent through the struggle of having underweight child Scovia choose to provide solutions by turning her innovation into a business so that she could produce the nutritious composite and sell at a small fee in her community to address malnutrition cases among the children in her area. However, Scovia lacked the technical knowledge on how to make her product more nutritious with recommended packaging and safety of her products and struggled with proper packaging. Despite her commitment, these challenges limited her ability to grow and scale. Scovia was identified by CASCADE project through the Mbale City Commercial Officer, and she has benefited from technical assistance which has built her capacity to produce safe, nutritious, and affordable products for women of reproductive age. CASCADE project is working with 60 private service providers just like Scovia in the food sector to produce safe, nutritious, and affordable products for women of reproductive and children. This intervention has not only increased access to nutritious product for the target group, but the business opportunity for women in Uganda.

The urgency is clear: 2.4 million Ugandan children under five are chronically malnourished (stunted), according to the Office of the Prime Minister’s 2020 nutrition status report. By 2024, the report further estimated that 112,270 children in Karamoja were at risk of acute malnutrition. Access to affordable, healthy diets remains out of reach for many women and children.

Over the past years, the CASCADE Programme, with support from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, has made significant progress in tackling this challenge. By building the capacity of SMEs producing nutritious products, CASCADE has helped businesses meet safety standards and reach the communities that need them most. Implemented by the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) and CARE International Uganda, alongside partners such as Food Rights Alliance (FRA), Kyambogo University, and the Africa Innovations Institute (AFRII), the project has reached 1.89 million individuals (56% female) across five sub-regions, 15 districts, and three cities.

Therefore, to address this, the CASCADE program recently convened a high-level breakfast meeting, bringing together policymakers, development partners, and private-sector actors to explore opportunities to scale, address persistent nutrition challenges, and identify financing options amid multiple emergencies and policy shifts. Already, GAIN is supporting 61 private service providers (85%) to produce safe and nutritious foods.

But this is not enough. Uganda needs increased funding and enabling policies that will unlock private-sector innovation and investment in nutrition. Only then can entrepreneurs like Scovia, and many others across Uganda, turn their solutions into sustainable businesses that safeguard the health and future of millions.