From Research to Impact: HealthyDiets4Africa Accelerates Food-System Innovations to Combat Malnutrition
Mbé, Bouaké, Côte d’Ivoire — More than 40 food-system scientists and project partners from 21 institutions across Africa and Europe gathered at the Africa Rice Center (AfricaRice) Mbé Research Station in Bouaké from 21–26 September 2026 for the HealthyDiets4Africa (HD4A) Annual Consortium Meeting, Project Review and Monitoring Mission. After three and a half years of implementation, the meeting provided an important opportunity to assess progress and sharpen priorities as the EU-funded project moves into the final phase of its 2023–2028 implementation cycle.
HD4A brings together a consortium of 21 institutions — 12 African and 9 European — led by Justus Liebig University Giessen (JLU) and implemented across eight African countries: Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria, Benin, Liberia, Cameroon, Kenya and Uganda. Funded under Horizon Europe to the tune of €10.8 million, the project seeks to combat malnutrition by transforming how food is produced, processed, marketed and consumed, thereby supporting food systems that are more diverse, nutritious and sustainable. Its work spans cereal, legume, vegetable, fruit, fish and livestock value chains.
A strategic review at a critical juncture
After three and a half years of implementation, HD4A is increasingly moving from research and innovation development toward deployment, entrepreneurship and scaling. The project has developed and identified several healthy-diet innovation packages for its living labs, trained thousands of young people in food-system diversification — more than 159 of whom have established their own businesses — and is supporting the training of more than 40 MSc and PhD students. The meeting brought together Work Package (WP) leaders, living lab coordinators and key stakeholders to review performance, identify remaining gaps and accelerate delivery of the project’s objectives.
Over five days, WP leaders presented progress across all ten work packages, covering areas ranging from dietary diversity monitoring and new crop varieties to the nutrient potential of underutilized crops, consumer acceptance and food-product innovation. Cluster and plenary sessions culminated in a round-up session on Friday 25 September, which identified recommendations and priorities for the final implementation phase. “Diversifying food chains — at production, supply, and consumption levels — will improve nutrition while ensuring socioeconomic and environmental sustainability,” stated Dr. Prem Bindraban, AfricaRice Deputy Director General.
From research to fields: the Bouaké Living Lab
Established by AfricaRice and partners in Bouaké in 2023, the Côte d’Ivoire Living Lab focuses on diversified food systems and building the capacity of young people through agribusiness training, placement and entrepreneurship support. The partners play complementary roles: CERFAM works on nutrition policy, communication, documentation and promotion of good practices; ESST focuses on workplace nutrition and awareness around healthy diets; OIC-CI supports youth in agribusiness; and AfricaRice leads innovation development, testing and deployment.
On Friday 25 September, participants visited AfricaRice’s integrated rice-based systems at Mbé, including rice-fish, rice-okra, rice-pepper, rice-soybean and rice–orange-fleshed sweet potato systems. The field demonstrations illustrated how diversification of rice-based production can combine multiple crops and enterprises within the same farming system, with observed positive land-use efficiencies, higher cost-benefit ratios and improved environmental sustainability. These systems provide practical pathways for linking agricultural diversification with food availability, income opportunities and healthier diets, and are being scaled in project target countries and beyond.
Participants also toured AfricaRice’s Grain Quality and Post-harvest Unit, the Monty Jones Rice Biodiversity Center for Africa and the Agronomy Laboratory. Together, these facilities underpin AfricaRice’s scientific contribution to HD4A through research and innovation on healthy rice, grain-quality analysis, processing, product diversification and diversified rice-based production systems. The visit highlighted how research infrastructure and scientific evidence can support the development, testing and deployment of nutrition-sensitive innovations for farmers, processors and consumers.
From policy to enterprise
On the first day in Abidjan, participants visited CERFAM (the Regional Center of Excellence Against Hunger and Malnutrition), a Government of Côte d’Ivoire–World Food Programme center that leads HD4A’s policy and communication work, including the mapping and monitoring of nutrition policies in the eight project countries. They also met ESST (Entreprise en Santé et Sécurité au Travail), which delivers nutrition education and awareness activities for communities and workers, trains company canteen managers, and co-developed a nutrition guide for workers with the National Nutrition Program (PNN).
On Wednesday 23 September, OIC-CI (Opportunities Industrialization Center Côte d’Ivoire) showcased HD4A’s youth-in-agribusiness component, which is implemented in Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya and Nigeria. OIC-CI’s demonstration units combine 20% theory with 80% hands-on practice in above-ground fish farming, soilless vegetable production, poultry and rabbit farming, insect rearing and rice parboiling. Since 2023, OIC-CI has trained 139 young people (100 men and 39 women) and supported them to gain employment or establish their own businesses. The results are tangible: OIC-CI beneficiaries have launched 50 healthy-food businesses, created 126 jobs, and produced about 697 metric tons of low-glycemic-index rice and vegetables as well as 17,350 poultry, fish and rabbits.
OIC-CI also demonstrated circular bioeconomy principles in practice. Rice processing produces low-glycemic-index rice for consumers; rice residues are used as livestock feed; livestock waste fertilizes crops; fish-farming water irrigates vegetable gardens; and agricultural waste is used to rear edible larvae of the African palm weevil (Rhynchophorus phoenicis). Beneficiaries are also reducing chemical inputs in favor of compost, with some reporting yield increases from about 1 to 2 tons per hectare.
Together, the visits demonstrated how HD4A connects research, policy, nutrition education, youth entrepreneurship and diversified production within a food-systems approach. As the project advances toward 2028, the priority will be to consolidate evidence from the living labs, strengthen collaboration across work packages, and move promising innovations from testing and demonstration toward wider uptake and scaling. The goal is to ensure that HD4A’s innovations and results are not only scientifically robust, but also practical, scalable and ready to inform enterprise development, policy and future investments in healthier and more sustainable food systems across Africa.
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