According to the 2026 State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World report, an estimated 935 million people in sub-Saharan Africa cannot afford a healthy diet. This stark reality underscores one of the region's greatest nutrition challenges: ensuring that nutritious foods are not only available, but also affordable for the people who need them most.
Addressing this challenge requires strong agrifood businesses capable of producing, processing and distributing nutritious foods at scale. This is precisely why the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) launched the Nutritious Foods Financing Facility (N3F).
Across Sub-Saharan Africa, most SMEs producing nutritious foods are family-owned enterprises. Often built from modest beginnings, these businesses play an important role in food systems by creating jobs, supporting rural economies, and expanding access to safe and affordable nutritious foods. As these companies grow, the demands for strengthening and streamlining their corporate governance and management structures increase significantly.
Investing in nutrition isn’t just possible, it’s smart. That’s the key message that sticks with us a few weeks after the GIIN Impact Forum 2025, where we organised a session, “Nutrition Lens Investing: A Framework for Action”.
Moderated by Roberta Bove (GAIN), the discussion brought together a diverse mix of development financiers, fund managers, and impact practitioners to explore how investors can move beyond broad food security goals to intentionally target nutrition impact, focusing on the quality, not just the quantity, of food reaching consumers.
Investing in companies that support nutritious food value chains could be a triple win for farmers’ livelihoods, their nutrition, and that of the end consumers of their products – but how do we know it actually works? Over the past few months, the Nutritious Foods Financing Facility (N3F) has been working with our first few investees and the leading impact-measurement specialist 60 Decibels to try and find out.
The benefits of trade are often viewed in economic terms, but its human impact — on malnutrition in particular — cannot be ignored. Malnutrition stunts development, weakens immunity, and deteriorates bone and muscle health.
Good nutrition has a hugely positive impact on health and other social goals, like educational attainment and work productivity – but the sector remains under-financed relative to its potential. How can we change this?
In a recent report, Overcoming Multistakeholder Partnership Financing Hurdles to Accelerate the SDGs, the World Resources Institute (WRI) and partners discuss the funding challenges and lessons learned of commercially driven multi-stakeholder partnerships and share some recommendations on how to effectively drive positive impact on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Poor nutrition is an untrenched global challenge that impacts many of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals. Solving it will require a significant capital infusion in a more local, more sustainable, global food system able to deliver more affordable healthy food. That’s a big opportunity for impact investors.
