Let Them Eat Cake

Hey, Sheriff here 👋 

Just a heads-up, today’s edition might be a tough read.

It’s about malnutrition—a well-known problem in Africa that’s bad, but also existential.

But before we get into it, we have something to say…

Now, on to this week’s story….

This is not a tech story. But it’s an African one.

Last month, over 1.5 million Nigerian teens failed the college entrance exam.

That’s nearly 80% of the people who sat for the test.

Ten years ago, I sat for the same exam and passed it. But the failure rates back then were just as bad.

So, it got me thinking.

What does it mean if one of the world’s biggest populations can’t pass college entrance exams?

It’s an existential threat.

Everyone blames the same things they did ten years ago.

Schools, social media, and bad testing centres.

But no one blames lunch.

In Africa, one in every three kids is malnourished.

And while we build solutions to many other problems across Africa, this one is existential.

If it goes unsolved, the entire continent might never reach its potential.

This edition might be a tough read, because most Africans are…

Young, free, and hungry

Africa is the world’s youngest continent, with half the population under 18.

It’s also the hungriest.

• One in three African children lives in severe food poverty

• 216 million kids are already stunted or malnourished

• And 30% of under-fives are stunted, well above the global average of 22%

Stunting isn’t just about being small or short. It’s biological throttling.

Brains, immune systems, and general health can get compromised from an early stage.

But here’s the thing: malnutrition is not about not eating enough.

It’s about not getting enough of the right nutrients. Because with food…

It’s the little things that matter

Sometimes, malnutrition happens because of a lack of micronutrients.

These are chemicals vital for our lives that our bodies only need in small amounts.

The weird part is, most kids don’t get them in their food.

Here’s a quick look at a few, and what they do:

• Calcium, which helps kids develop stronger bones and teeth

• Magnesium and Iodine help with brain development

• Iron helps the body make more blood cells to move oxygen around

• And Vitamin A helps with eyesight

When kids don’t get these nutrients, what should be a demographic dividend becomes a disaster.

Lack of iodine leads to poor focus and lower IQ.

Stunted kids lose up to 1.2 years of schooling on average.

And in 2020, the World Food Programme found that between 1% to 18% of grade repeats in Africa were tied to stunting.

The sad part: most of this is irreversible.

If a child doesn’t get proper nutrition in the first 1,000 days—from conception to age two—their cognitive potential is permanently reduced.

By the time they arrive in school, it’s already too late. 

The body-and-brain tax

Malnutrition also hits the wallets hard.

A World Bank Study showed that early malnutrition can slice off up to 10% off a person’s annual income.

And in Guatemala, well-nourished kids grew up to earn 46% more than their stunted neighbours.

It adds up.

Malnutrition leads to poor health and less schooling, which leads to low productivity, more sick days, and less income overall.

An entire generation of workers is being quietly handicapped before they ever become workers. 

When people can’t work at capacity, economies feel it too..

At least 40% of working-age Africans suffered from stunting as kids.

Child malnutrition costs countries anywhere from 1.9% to 16.5% of their GDP.

Thanks to overburdened hospitals, chronic illnesses, and low productivity.

A few quick hits.

• It costs Ethiopia about 16.5% of its GDP each year
  

• It costs Ghana 6.4%
  

• And it costs Uganda 5.6%

You can’t 10x a starving population. So it’s worth asking.

Who’s feeding us empty calories?

Like many African problems, malnutrition begins with poverty.

Some of the most malnourished countries in Africa—like Chad, Niger, Somalia and the DRC—are also the poorest.

But poverty alone is not to blame. It’s made worse by access, cost, and ignorance.

For instance, Africa has the lowest agricultural productivity in the world.

About 50% of Africans work in the sector, but the continent still imports $50 billion worth of food each year, mostly processed and nutrient-poor.

Even worse, food inflation in sub-Saharan Africa hit double digits in the last four years.

When food prices go up, nutrition quality is often the first to go.

Lastly, culture plays a big role.

Many caregivers don’t know what a balanced meal looks like, especially in early childhood.

In some places, protein-rich foods are considered “too good” for kids, or dark leafy vegetables are avoided because of myths

Yes, it’s ignorance—but a costly kind.

So, we already know that malnutrition hurts economies. 

But what happens when you fight it?

How to feed a continent

In rural Tanzania, there’s a machine that’s quietly saving lives.

No big launch. No press. Just a pink box, rigged up to a flour mill.

It’s called a dosifier.

It automatically adds nutrients—iron, zinc, folic acid—into flour as it’s milled. No extra step. No extra cost.

The nonprofit behind it? Sanku.

They figured out something interesting: most Africans get their calories from one place—flour.

It’s in bread, wheat and many other foods Africans eat. 

So if you want to fight malnutrition at scale, maybe you don’t need to fix farming.

You just need to hijack the supply chain.

Sanku installs these dosifiers in small village mills.

Then they provide the mills with custom empty flour bags—market price, same quality—but the margin pays for the nutrients and machine upkeep.

The millers win, families win, and no one pays extra.

The coolest part? Each dosifier is fitted with a SIM card.

That means Sanku can track real-time usage, push updates, and send a tech when something breaks.

Today, over 1,100 mills across 5 countries are part of the network.

10 million people eat fortified food because of it.

Over a billion meals have already been dosed.

This is what it looks like when you solve a massive problem with tech that meets people where they are.

To solve malnutrition in Africa, we need more solutions like Sanku because…

Nutrition is Africa’s surest growth hack

While healthy food is expensive to many families, hunger is way pricier.

Lost wages, healthcare costs, and remedial schooling translate to billions of dollars yearly.

Yet, good nutrition pays off huge dividends for countries in healthcare, education, and economic growth.

For every $1 invested in proven nutrition schemes, $17 is returned to the economy.

Besides early education, one of the highest ROIs we can get is on nutrition.

Infrastructure yields $4 for every $1, and healthcare yields up to $9.

Nutrition is one of the most cost-effective ways to develop African countries.

Because once it’s solved, interesting things will happen.

• Classroom repeat rates will drop. 

• Workforces will get smarter. 

• And it’ll raise incomes and  GDP

Currently, that hack isn’t being used at scale.

But without it, Africa wouldn’t have the future it wants.

Because better nutrition can give every other indicator—health, education, income—a big lift.

So, maybe this is not a tech story, but it makes every other African tech story possible.

Do you know any other ways to fix malnutrition in Africa?

Tell me here.

That’s it for this week. See you on Sunday for a breakdown on This Week in African Tech. 

Cheers,

The Tech Safari Team

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