Micro, small, and medium-scale enterprises (MSMEs) produce, process, or sell up to 70% of nutritious foods in Africa, including fruits, vegetables, dairy products, and animal-sourced proteins. They play a critical role in sustaining healthy diets, particularly in rural communities and among low-income urban populations.
Enterprise Support Organisations (ESOs) are key enablers within this ecosystem. They provide essential services to MSMEs, including business development support, market linkages, access to finance, networking opportunities, advocacy, and technical capacity building. By strengthening MSMEs, ESOs contribute to improving food systems and nutrition outcomes.
The Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) contracted Mukinduri Consulting Africa to assess the ESO ecosystems in Benin, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Mozambique, and Uganda. The objective was to generate strategic recommendations and develop an implementation framework to support GAIN’s Nutrition Impact at Scale programme.
Drawing on extensive interviews conducted across the six countries, the assessment identified both systemic strengths and structural gaps. Based on these findings, Mukinduri developed recommendations focused on institutional strengthening, embedding nutrition more deliberately into capacity-building initiatives, introducing innovative financing mechanisms, enhancing coordination among ESOs, strengthening policy alignment, and improving monitoring, evaluation, and learning systems.
The study provides a practical roadmap for enhancing the effectiveness of ESOs in driving nutrition-sensitive enterprise growth at scale across diverse African contexts.
