Tanzania: SMEs Urges Investment in Nutrition Business

SMALL businesses have been encouraged to do more business in matters that focus on nutrition that...

besides making profits it is also important in terms of health for the general population.

Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) Country Director, Enock Msinguzi, told participants of Lishe Accelerator II over the weekend that innovation is crucial for any business model to succeed and that the same goes with nutrition.

"Confidence is important and this can be made possible through training as we have witnessed over the period that small and medium enterprises (SMEs) have been going through the accelerator," he said.

Lishe Startup Accelerator is a programme to accelerate Tanzania's nutrition sensitive SMEs to be investor ready undertaken by GAIN in collaboration with Sahara Ventures.

He thus thanked Sahara Ventures for their professionalism and called all participants to take heart because at the end of it all the five finalists would all have emerged winners.

Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Business Network, in collaboration with key partners, launched the second edition of the SUN Pitch Competition for 2019/2020, with the theme 'Rethinking Nutrition Innovations', according to Project Manager, Abbas Sykes.

He noted that the competition aims to support innovative solutions for improved nutrition by connecting Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in emerging markets with technical assistance and investment opportunities.

According to Sykes, the SME that emerged the winner out of five finalists during this year's competition will represent the country at SUN Business Network in Singapore in March next year.

During the event in Dar es Salaam, Assistant Director in the Prime Minister's Office (PMO), Policy, Coordination and Parliament (Performance Management), Devota Gabriel observed that the programme is crucial for the country in many ways.

Ms Gabriel said that since is a permanent endeavour, it will go a long way to provide platform for SMEs to network with different organisations to tackle the problem of malnutrition, especially among children.

"Malnutrition leads to stunting and if the problem of stunting persists the country is bound to lose crucial manpower in the future.

This programme will help low-income households to get access to affordable improved diet," she said