Malnutrition continues to affect Africa in the 21st century; according to the most recent report by UNICEF, the WHO and the World Bank, there are 83 million children under the age of 5 in Africa suffering from some form of malnutrition as of 2017.

59 million children in Africa suffer from a form of malnutrition known as ‘stunting’. This occurs when a child is undernourished during the first 1000 days of their life, which leads to stunted growth as well as impaired cognitive development. Progress towards eradicating this form of malnutrition has been insufficient in Africa since the turn of the century; whilst rates of stunting fell by 62% in East Asia and the Pacific between 2000 and 2016, they fell by just 18% in West and Central Africa in the same time period. Despite a fall in percentage terms, the actual number of stunted children has increased by 4% in Eastern and Southern Africa and by 23% in West and Central Africa during this period. A further 14 million children under the age of 5 suffering from wasting – also known as acute malnutrition – with 4.1 million children categorised as ‘severely wasted’.

Credit: UNICEF

The work of Bread and Water for Africa UK and our partners offers long term solutions to this problem by helping communities to become self-sufficient. Our project in Kenya feeds the orphans and vulnerable children of the Lewa Children's Home, using food grown at its Bakara Farm and sells the surplus on the market to generate an income. The Imizi Children's Centre in Rwanda provides food for 200 children.

The We Are the Future centre in Freetown, Sierra Leone, is supporting communities who have been ravaged by the 2014 Ebola outbreak and are subsequently struggling to feed their children.

The Lewa Children's Home feeds orphans and vulnerable children in Eldoret, Kenya.

Finally, we're expanding our project in Burundi so that every child at the Murakaza school will receive a nutritious daily meal of fortified porridge. Read more here.

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