A brand new African-led initiative to advertise more healthy, extra simply and climate-resilient meals techniques was launched on April 30, 2026 on the College of Ghana in Accra, Ghana. The African Regional Agriculture, Diet and Well being Collaboration (ANH-ARC) brings collectively Africa’s main analysis and coverage establishments to strengthen proof, coverage and funding in meals techniques and vitamin.
ANH-ARC fosters a group of consultants in Africa to speed up collaboration and motion to remodel meals techniques and enhance weight-reduction plan, vitamin and well being throughout the continent by producing and putting rigorous, policy-ready proof on the heart of decision-making on weight-reduction plan, vitamin and meals system transformation.
Positioned as a regional science-policy platform, ANH-ARC generates, synthesizes and interprets high-quality proof into actionable coverage and financing choices, making certain that this work incorporates gender equality and local weather resilience as core priorities.
The initiative is co-led by the College of Ghana (Ghana), the Institute for Coverage Analysis (Ethiopia) and Stellenbosch College (South Africa). ANH-ARC is the African node of the worldwide ANH Academy Science Coverage Platform, convened by the London College of Hygiene and Tropical Drugs in collaboration with Tufts College and the College of Sheffield, and funded by UK Worldwide Improvement from the UK Authorities and the Gates Basis.
Collaborative (ANH-ARC) has pressing challenges to handle. Africa’s meals techniques are underneath growing strain from intersecting challenges, together with all types of malnutrition, rising meals costs, speedy urbanization, local weather change, international exterior pressures, and fragmented governance. Though the proof base has expanded considerably, its translation into coverage and observe stays uneven. ANH-ARC is anticipated to strengthen the interface between science, coverage, and implementation.
Professor Amos Rahle, Principal Investigator at ANH-ARC on the College of Ghana, careworn that too usually present meals system selections are fragmented throughout agriculture, vitamin and well being, and the collaboration seeks to handle this hole by constructing on built-in cross-disciplinary proof and motion primarily based on African realities. He careworn that “agriculture, vitamin and well being can now not function in silos. Proof should join them deliberately to tell policy-related selections.”
Dr. Alebel Weldeshirasi of the Coverage Research Institute (PSI) highlighted the important significance of linking funding and financing insurance policies, saying: “Efficient meals system transformation to enhance entry to inexpensive and nutritious meals for all in Africa requires not solely stable proof but additionally constant financing methods and coverage coordination throughout sectors.”
In the meantime, Professor Kennedy Zama, Dean of the College of Agriculture at Stellenbosch College, mentioned: “Strengthening governance techniques and accountability mechanisms are important to changing data into large-scale and sustainable influence.”
Dr Tsedei Mekasha, ANH-ARC Integration Chief on the Institute for Coverage Analysis, echoed related sentiments, stressing that for meals system transformation to be efficient and sustainable, gender, fairness and local weather concerns should even be built-in into how proof is generated, insurance policies are designed and selections are made. With out this, interventions threat lacking distributional results and should fail to ship resilient outcomes underneath growing local weather pressures.
Talking on behalf of the worldwide ANH Academy, Dr. Sunitha Kadiyala, from the London College of Hygiene and Tropical Drugs, emphasised the significance of African management, saying, “Platforms like ANH-ARC are vital as a result of they not solely strengthen the interpretation of proof into coverage, but additionally mannequin a extra equitable and regionally primarily based approach of manufacturing data itself. Sustainable change doesn’t merely depend on higher proof, however on partnership buildings that redistribute voice, management, and agenda-setting.” It brings you nearer to the place selections are made and the place the influence is felt. ”
“As Chief Scientific Adviser, I’m pleased with the UK’s funding within the ANH Academy and the robust dedication to what Africa Regional Collaboration represents: neutral, African-led analysis that has real-world influence,” mentioned Professor Sir John Edmunds, Chief Scientific Adviser on the UK Overseas, Commonwealth and Improvement Workplace (FCDO). “It will strengthen scientific capability, join researchers and policymakers, and tackle a few of as we speak’s most urgent improvement challenges.”
“The Gates Basis is proud to help the ANH-ARC initiative at a important second for Africa’s meals techniques,” mentioned Ana María Loboguerrero, director of Adaptive and Equitable Meals Methods on the Gates Basis. “Bringing collectively main analysis and coverage consultants from Ghana, Ethiopia and South Africa, this collaboration will enhance entry to secure, inexpensive and wholesome diets by leveraging rigorous proof rooted in native realities to tell climate-sensitive meals and agriculture coverage, resulting in more healthy and extra equitable outcomes throughout the continent.”
The strategic partnership will help the design and realization of the formidable ANH-ARC objectives. This contains 4 sub-regional nodes (representing southern, western, japanese and northern Africa), in addition to the Worldwide Community for Meals and Surroundings Analysis, Monitoring and Motion Help (INFORMAS), the African Meals and Surroundings Analysis Community (FERN), and the African Meals and Surroundings Analysis Institute. l’Ouest (REPSAO), the ANH Academy Meals and Surroundings Working Group (FEWG), the Coordinating Middle for Agricultural Analysis and Improvement in Southern Africa (CCARDESA), the Meals Analysis Institute of Southern Africa, the Guild/ARUA Cluster on Meals and Environmental Motion to Promote Well being (FE4H CoRE), and the College of Greenwich Institute of Pure Sources.
This initiative demonstrates alignment with continental frameworks such because the African Union’s Complete African Agricultural Improvement Program (CAADP), the Kampala Declaration and the African Continental Free Commerce Space (AfCFTA), and can contribute to a extra coherent, coordinated and evidence-based meals system transformation throughout Africa.
