Through the inclusion of critical nutrients into the food, Sanku is trying to prevent diseases and deficits for malnourished populations
Ending malnutrition in Sub-Saharan Africa
The goal of ending malnutrition seems intended to address a problem far too large for a single organization to deal with. However, the data examined return a clear reflection of what malnutrition means. It is the well-studied and known micronutrient deficiency that affects some two billion people.
This is where Sanku seeks to intervene, explains Leah Tronel, director of development. The company founded by Felix Brooks-Church grew out of a personal humanitarian experience that turned into a social and charitable project.
Although the causes and action points on which to act to prevent malnutrition from continuing to cause unjust deaths are now clear; solutions are not being implemented at the government level. In particular, Sanku operates on incorporating these vital nutrients into existing foods in order to reach a significant number of people.
The establishment and idea of Sanku
About ten years ago Felix Brooks-Church had traveled to Cambodia to support a project that took children off the streets and sought to reintegrate them into family and school environments.
There he realized that the main problem was related to nutrition, considering that several children had weak immune systems, became ill and often died. The project expanded to providing nutrients to children and mothers for the first two years of life. This is where Sanku’s project and its action in Tanzania against malnutrition takes its start.
«We started to develop a technology that could implement the work of fortification, but when we came to Tanzania we realized we needed a model to go on, because no one had the possibility to pay for the nutrients», Tronel points out. This required a study of the needs, local business and resources so as to carry out the project that first Project Healthy Children and then Sanku came up with.
Studies on nutritional deficits and malnutrition
The work done by Sanku Project Health Children is based on official data analyzed by the World Health Organization, explains Leah Tronel, which defined the deficiencies and nutrients to be implemented. The overarching figure that represents the urgency for action is that two billion people lack access to vital nutrients.
Under the age of five there are two hundred million children suffering from mental impairment. The most staggering data concerns preventable deaths within this context. About sixteen thousand children die every day due to malnutrition, and these account for one-third of global child deaths.
Meanwhile, due to poor health, one million deaths a year are caused by malaria. This situation is concentrated predominantly in Africa, declares Sanku, where access to nutrient dense food is limited and diets mainly consist of starchy flour resulting in a lack of vitamins and minerals.
Food fortification at the heart of the solution
What Sanku highlights is that more than 2.3 billion people in the world are not reaching their physical and intellectual potential because of malnutrition. That is why their action is based on an effective solution that is easy to implement and affordable. According to Sanku, the answer to this situation lies in food fortification, which has already been implemented in the rest of the world since 1920.
Micronutrients such as vitamins and minerals, even if in small amounts, are necessary to maintain proper health. As the diets of some deprived populations are also lacking in these substances due to the absence of the intake of specific foods, Sanku, through this project, improves the existing food.
«Food fortification is the addition of key vitamins and minerals (e.g. iron, folic acid, iodine, vitamin A, and zinc) to staple foods to improve their nutritional content and address a nutritional gap in a population», states their website.
The benefits of this system lie in not having to change one’s eating habits by referring to the food available in these areas. In developed countries, common fortified foods are salt, maize flour, wheat flour, sugar, vegetable oil, and rice, Tronel points out.
Micronutrients essential for proper health
Micronutrients cannot be recreated in the laboratory, and a varied diet of plant and animal based foods can provide the necessary amount. In less developed countries such as Tanzania, where Sanku operates, the main food used is flour..
In addition to a decrease in productivity, the wrong intake of these micronutrients or a total absence poses health risks. In children in particular, intellectual disability is due to iodine deficiency while blindness is due to vitamin A insufficiency, Sanku explains. Then there are also deaths during childbirth caused by iron deficiency, as well as decreased mental capacity.
Malnutrition in a comprehensive way affects the immune system, weakening people even against common diseases such as influence. «A person’s chances of dying from measles or diarrhea are between thirty to fifty percent».
As a result, physical weakness is associated with the inability to go to school for children, and to work for adults. This has a negative effect on social, economic and political aspects. «The Micronutrient Initiative and the World Bank estimate that the most affected countries may lose as much as two to three percent of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per year», Sanku continues.
Small scale fortification
The project acts with respect to the aforementioned problem in two different ways: through small scale or large scale fortification. In the first case, Sanku relies on local flour mills responsible for food production and direct sales to consumers.
Here dosifiers are installed that do a precise calculation of the amount of vital nutrients to be placed within the flour. The cost of nutrients is minimal, and to support millers and compensate for these expenses Sanku buys empty pink flour sacks to sell to them to package the flour.
Each bag covers the miller’s nutrient cost, given the savings per container of flour. Associated with the dosing system is a technology that allows Sanku to monitor its use from a remote location. In addition, on-site assistance is provided in case there are breaks or malfunctions or nutrient replenishment.
The results of the large scale work
There is a large-scale program that Project healthy Children has been trying to implement in agreement with governments in sub-Saharan countries since 2001. This project, focused particularly in Rwanda, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Liberia and Burundi, has enabled the establishment of food fortification policies.
Working on a large scale, however, they realized that the project failed to reach smaller or rural realities, in addition to the fact that thirty-five percent of the people in the places where they worked did not benefit from food fortification. Therefore Sanku was born so as to focus on a scalable and cost-effective solution.
Over the years it has been evaluated how small-scale fortification proves to be the most effective when it comes to malnutrition reduction. According to data provided by Sanku, 55 million people are reached through large scale programs, while 25 million people is the target to be reached with small scale fortification by 2025.
Beyond the nutrition aspect
In addition to working on defeating malnutrition in a direct way, Sanku links up with other organizations or associations active in the refugee sector. The number of these, exceeds that of World War II and is linked to conflicts, persecution or genocide from which entire families are trying to escape.
Host countries often manage to provide precarious accommodations where hygiene and health conditions are poor, including the difficulty of supplying proper and healthy nutrition. Host camps aim, above all, to provide shelter from military aggression, but they are seldom able to deal with the livelihood and care of refugees.
Children are forced to survive in at-risk communities around the world without being able to meet basic needs. Since 2017, Sanku has been collaborating with the World Food Program to act on the school feeding program in the Kakuma Refugee camp in Kenya, which is home to eighty thousand children. Since 2019 Sanku has also been taking care of 300 thousand Burundian and Congolese refugees in Tanzania.
Lampoon reporting: flour fortification to fight malnutrition
The idea first proposed by Project Health Children of fortification and then continued by Sanku on a small scale basis is the starting point for combating malnutrition. The data is clear and explains how implementing flour fortification in single communities can address this issue. Also relevant is the minimal expenditure that the project guarantees.
Indeed, the Sanku website states: «The cost per person per year is as low as $0.26, varying based on the food and specific vitamins added. This means for every $0.26 that is donated, one person is provided with essential vitamins and minerals through a fortified food product for an entire year».
Linked in a close way to malnutrition is the rate of death and above all illnesses, which would be reduced by at least making less serious diseases non-fatal.
Sanku
Sanku is a project founded by Felix Brooks-church, current CEO, and David Dodson, professor at Stanford GSB. Started as a side venture of the global NGO Project Healthy Children, it is now based in Tanzania where it operates on a local level. Sanku functions mainly in East Africa, specifically Tanzania, with their small scale fortification, while operating large scale fortification in several other Sub-Saharan African countries such as Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Malawi, Liberia and Burundi.
