Strategic Landscape Analysis & Enterprise Pipeline in East Africa’s Nutrition Sector

The Eleanor Crook Foundation (ECF) is a pioneering US philanthropy with a laser focus on combating global malnutrition. Through three main avenues—funding nutrition research, building local organizations’ technical capacity, and rallying external stakeholders—ECF aims to generate a broad impact on global nutrition.

CrossBoundary Advisory was engaged by the Eleanor Crook Foundation (ECF) to deliver a comprehensive landscape analysis of the nutrition sector in Sub-Saharan Africa. Nutrition remains a critical issue in Sub-Saharan Africa, with high rates of malnutrition that affect both individual well-being and broader economic productivity. A growing ecosystem of nutrition-focused enterprises has the potential to deliver innovative solutions but faces various barriers, including access to capital and specialized technical assistance.

Key workstreams for this engagement included:

• Sector mapping to identify growth barriers in the nutrition space
• Criteria formulation for deciding which enterprises warrant support
• Pipeline development of nutrition-focused enterprises in need of transaction advisory services

Our mission was multi-fold: to identify regional capital and technical assistance providers, evaluate barriers to investment, and pinpoint up to 10 enterprises suitable for transaction advisory support.

CrossBoundary Advisory provided the following for this transaction:

Stakeholder Engagement: Conducted in-depth interviews with over 55 key stakeholders, including investors and technical assistance providers, to understand the current landscape of the nutrition sector.

Criteria Development: Collaborated with the client to establish robust selection criteria for identifying promising enterprises within the nutrition space.

Pipeline Prioritization: Utilized the established criteria to score and prioritize a pipeline of up to 10 high-impact nutrition-focused enterprises, which was then shared with the foundation and relevant investors for further action.

The engagement’s insights are aimed at equipping ECF and other stakeholders with the critical information required for targeted, effective interventions in the nutrition sector of Eastern Africa.