Africa Builds New Nutrition Science Force as First 18 Nuclear-Tech Graduates Emerge

Many African countries face a difficult combination of persistent childhood stunting and rising diet-related non-communicable diseases.

Africa has gained a new group of nutrition specialists trained to use nuclear science to tackle malnutrition, with the first 18 students graduating from the IAEA-supported Master's Programme in Nutrition and Nuclear Techniques. Sixteen completed the programme at the International University of Rabat in Morocco, and two graduated from North-West University in South Africa, marking an important step in efforts to strengthen nutrition research capacity across the continent.

The graduates come from Benin, Burkina Faso, Comoros, Ivory Coast, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal and Zimbabwe. Their training gives them the ability to generate reliable nutrition data through stable isotope techniques, turning complex measurements of diet, body composition and nutrient absorption into evidence that governments and researchers can use to design stronger public health responses.

New scientific skills target Africa's growing nutrition pressures

Many African countries face a difficult combination of persistent childhood stunting and rising diet-related non-communicable diseases. A shortage of trained nutrition professionals makes the challenge harder, particularly as changing food systems, environmental pressures and economic globalization continue to affect access to affordable and nutritious diets.

The two-year Master of Science programme was created through the IAEA's human health and technical cooperation programmes to strengthen this expertise. Students are trained to safely use stable isotope techniques, which provide highly accurate and minimally invasive measurements of body composition, energy expenditure, nutrient bioavailability and breast milk intake in infants. Their studies also cover epidemiology, statistics and nutrition policy, followed by a field assignment and a thesis based on data produced through stable isotope methods.

The curriculum was developed and validated by health professionals from 22 African countries in line with the African Union's Agenda 2063. It is delivered through the University of Ghana, the International University of Rabat, North-West University and Mukuba University in Zambia, with another programme under development at Université Cheikh Anta Diop in Senegal.

Eight years of cooperation turn regional plans into trained specialists

The graduation reflects an eight-year effort linking the IAEA, African institutions and universities. In 2018, the IAEA and African Union Commission signed their first practical arrangements supporting peaceful uses of nuclear technology in Africa. The need for a harmonised nutrition curriculum was discussed a year later at the 10th Africa Day for Food and Nutrition Security in Cairo.

Experts from selected African universities met in Vienna in 2022 to draft the curriculum framework and identify teaching centres. The programme was formally validated at a regional meeting in Lusaka in 2023 and launched during the Federation of African Nutrition Societies Conference in Dakar that November, when the first IAEA-sponsored students began their studies.

Gashaw Wolde, Acting Director of the IAEA Division for Africa, said human resource development remains a major priority for the continent, adding that graduates are returning home with skills that can help shape nutrition strategies suited to national needs.

Graduates take isotope science into African nutrition research

The programme is already producing research focused on major public health concerns. Senegalese graduate Nibourou Top used stable isotope techniques to study vitamin A intake among breastfed infants in Dakar. She is now interning with the IAEA's Nutritional and Health-Related Environmental Studies Section and plans to pursue a PhD examining provitamin A bioavailability from plant-based foods.

Zimbabwe's Pauline Tsikayi used stable iron isotopes to investigate iron absorption as part of research addressing high rates of anaemia and iron deficiency among young African women. Rwanda's Phionah Nziza compared the deuterium dilution technique with bioelectrical impedance analysis to improve the accuracy of body composition measurements in African populations.

The IAEA sees the graduates as more than newly qualified specialists. Their role can extend into universities, laboratories, public health programmes and national policymaking, where they can produce locally relevant data and train future nutrition scientists. May Abdel-Wahab, Director of the IAEA Division of Human Health, described the programme as a long-term investment designed to strengthen research, influence evidence-based nutrition policies and build a new generation of African specialists capable of responding to the continent's changing nutrition challenges.