FoodLeader

The FoodLeader (Empowering Tomorrow's Food Security Leaders: Strengthening Higher Education Capacity for Sustainable Food Systems in Kenya and Mozambique) project is a collaboration between University of Helsinki (Finland), University of Nairobi (Kenya), and Universidade Lúrio (Mozambique). The FoodLeader project aims to enhance the capacity of all three academic institutions in educating future experts who provide strategic leadership to enhance food safety and nutrition security.

FoodLeader is strongly linked to the HEP themes “Food security as enabler of sustainable development” and ”Climate change, including energy transition and circular economy”. In Sub-Saharan Africa, almost one-third of the population is considered severely food insecure. Food safety and nutritional quality are crucial elements of food security. To reach Sustainable Development Goals, universities have a key role in developing related infrastructure and strategic expertise towards nutrition-sensitive food systems.

The project is divided into three consecutive “pillars”. The objective of the first pillar is to improve the current infrastructure and create new tools for teaching, as well as to target governance of the infrastructure for sustainable impact. This will be done by upgrading laboratory facilities and further developing an existing digital Dietary And food Safety Assessment Tool (DASAT) for collecting and analysing diet and food safety data that can be used in teaching and research.

The second pillar focuses on planning and incorporation of DASAT and the new, modern laboratory methods for food safety in the teaching programs, development of course outlines and teaching material, and related teacher training. For DASAT, the training also includes developing visual aids for portion size estimation, updating food composition databases as well as recipe and nutrient calculations. 

The third pillar combines theoretical and practical learning with societal outreach. We use local school feeding programs as a case study to link theoretical knowledge and skills in food safety and nutrition to practical needs of the local communities. Based on the results, the students develop solutions to mitigate food safety challenges and improve nutritional quality of school feeding programs and learn how to effectively communicate the results to the school meal programme authorities. The practical learning approach ensures that our project creates societal impact towards achievement of Sustainable Development Goals, in addition to reaching the Finnish development policy goals and the HEP programme goals.

Key results to be achieved:

1. Improved governance and infrastructure for modern laboratory analysis methods and affordable digital tools to estimate nutrient intakes.

2. Incorportation of modern food and nutrition assessment methods and digital tools in existing programmes for sustainable development.

3. Students have strengthened practical skills in measuring food safety and assessing dietary intake through engagement in community outreach.

4. Through blended learning, students gain in-depth theoretical knowledge on the field of food safety and nutrition security in a wider context of sustainable development.