Nutrition Finance Must Reach Beyond Food Aid, African Bank Leaders Tell Global Summit

Opening the conference, Ghana’s Vice President, Professor Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang, called for sustained investment across sectors, backed by science, strong public institutions and resilient health systems.

The African Development Bank Group joined more than 2,000 delegates from 119 countries at the Micronutrient Forum's 7th Global Conference in Accra, Ghana, from 28 September to 1 October 2026. Convened at the invitation of Ghana's National Development Planning Commission, the gathering focused on "Nutrition at the Frontiers of a Changing Environment."

The discussion centered on how to protect nutrition gains as aid budgets shrink and climate shocks, conflict and displacement put food and health systems under strain. The 2026 SOFI report estimates that 645 million people faced hunger in 2025 and 2.69 billion could not afford a healthy diet. In Africa, around 309 million people, one in five, faced hunger, and 66.6% could not afford a healthy diet.

Put nutrition into investments already being made

Opening the conference, Ghana's Vice President, Professor Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang, called for sustained investment across sectors, backed by science, strong public institutions and resilient health systems.

Philip Boahen, who leads partnerships and coordination in the African Development Bank Group's Agriculture and Agro-Industry Department, urged development institutions to build nutrition into investments they already finance. He argued that nutrition proposals need to show returns in terms finance ministers, development banks and investors can assess.

Boahen pointed to the Bank Group's Banking on Nutrition program and Multi-Sectoral Nutrition Action Plan, which have helped bring nutrition into its investment pipeline. Those efforts underpin the Bank's US$9.5 billion Nutrition for Growth pledge through 2030.

School meals can support children and local businesses

The Bank's End School-Age Hunger in Africa Trust Fund is designed to help finance government-owned school feeding programmes. Established with a US$50 million contribution from the Children's Investment Fund Foundation, it adds grant funding to larger Bank-financed projects. Its initial pipeline includes Uganda, Ethiopia, Benin, Guinea, Nigeria and The Gambia.

Linking meals to local procurement could support children's nutrition and school participation, as well as create steadier demand for smallholder farmers and agrifood businesses. The model connects a public service for children with local food suppliers and producers.

Research presented at the conference called for attention beyond the first 1,000 days, from conception to a child's second birthday. Speakers urged a life-course approach that follows children through the first 8,000 days, including school age and adolescence.

George Ouma, coordinator of the Trust Fund, outlined three steps for multilateral development banks: use a shared marker to track nutrition spending, budget for community accountability, and connect monitoring "from pledge to plate." These measures could help show whether funding reaches people and produces results.

Turn continental commitments into funded programmes

At the Africa plenary, former Ethiopian Deputy Prime Minister and African Leaders for Nutrition Champion Demeke Mekonnen Hassen joined African Union Commission representatives to discuss putting continental commitments into funded programmes. These include the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme Strategy and Action Plan 2026–2035 and the Kampala CAADP Declaration.

The conference closed with the Micronutrient Forum's Way Forward statement. Its eight recommendations and four-point Call to Action urge governments, development banks and private investors to protect domestic nutrition budgets, make nutrition measurable in investments across agriculture, education, social protection and climate, and use pooled and blended finance to scale programmes.

On the sidelines, the Bank Group held exploratory talks with Germany's Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development on a possible multi-donor structure for the Trust Fund; with the German Agency for International Cooperation on school feeding; and with the Novo Nordisk Foundation on possible cooperation in Ethiopia and Uganda.