{"id":20673,"date":"2015-10-02T03:51:54","date_gmt":"2015-10-02T03:51:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/rwanda-contracts-dutch-firm-to-combat\/"},"modified":"2015-10-02T03:50:17","modified_gmt":"2015-10-02T03:50:17","slug":"rwanda-contracts-dutch-firm-to-combat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/rwanda-contracts-dutch-firm-to-combat\/","title":{"rendered":"Rwanda Contracts Dutch Firm To Combat Malnutrition"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alarming cases of malnutrition have forced Rwanda to engage investors and seek solutions to the demise.<\/p>\n

By 2014, 48% of Rwandan children below the age of five were still malnourished; a slight reduction of 6% from 54% in 2010, according to the 4th integrated household living conditions survey report released in September 2015.<\/p>\n

While launching the report on September 14, President Paul Kagame challenged members of his government to seek immediate ways of combating malnutrition. \u201cIt\u2019s a matter of putting things together,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Subsequently, the government has entered into a deal with Africa Improved Foods Ltd (AIF) which will address malnutrition by manufacturing enhanced nutritional foods for vulnerable groups including the rural poor in Rwanda and the East Africa region.<\/p>\n

Africa Improved Foods Ltd is a consortium of Royal DSM, FMO, DIAF and IFC. DSM is a Dutch-based multinational life sciences and materials sciences company, with global end markets such as food and dietary supplements, personal care, feed and medical devices, among others.<\/p>\n

The Ministry of Agriculture says the country has already invested in fortified food factories to deal with a growing demand on the market.<\/p>\n

Trade ministry says 4.5% of imported products into Rwanda were fortified foods.<\/p>\n

This is a result of the increasing demand on the Rwandan market. Currently, Rwanda imports most of the products including powdered milk, soya and cereals from Uganda, Kenya and Europe.<\/p>\n

With Rwanda entering the new partnership, officials said the joint venture will reach more than one million people annually with effective nutrition interventions by 2017.<\/p>\n

A factory will be constructed in the capital Kigali to produce fortified foods, creating 230 direct jobs while offering 9,000 local farmers a stable, sustainable income for a proportion of their harvest.<\/p>\n

Agriculture Minister, Geraldine Mukeshimana told KT Press that: \u201cBy using locally grown maize and soya beans to produce fortified foods, this partnership is a right step in achieving this goal.\u201d<\/p>\n

The country has laid smooth investment policies to attract big investors into fortified food factories.<\/p>\n

According to Rwanda Development Board, former US President Bill Clinton, under his \u2018Clinton Foundation\u2019, in a joint venture with DSM and ETG, a regional agricultural SUPPLIER, has also invested $60 million in construction of fortified food processing factory, with a capacity to over 20,000 tons of raw materials every day.<\/p>\n

Currently Sosoma and Minimex are the only local companies producing baby food, but not enough for the demand.<\/p>\n

Major initial customers of the joint venture company include the World Food Program; facilitating an efficient response to food emergencies in East Africa, and the Government of Rwanda that is committed to ensuring that the Rwandan population has access to nutritional foods.<\/p>\n

Rwanda will distribute the fortified foods across the country.<\/p>\n

Ute Schick, CEO of AIF commented that: \u201cWe are proud to be supported by a unique coalition of committed partners to produce nutritious foods in Africa.<\/p>\n

Our commitment will create jobs and provide income to local farmers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

Source: National institute of statistics Rwanda<\/p>\n

KT Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alarming cases of malnutrition have forced Rwanda to engage investors and seek solutions to the demise. By 2014, 48% of Rwandan children below the age of five were still malnourished; a slight reduction of 6% from 54% in 2010, according to the 4th integrated household living conditions survey report released in September 2015. While launching […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2000069683,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[69],"byline":[160],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-20673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-homehighlights","byline-theophile-niyitegeka"],"bylines":[{"id":160,"name":"Th\u00e9ophile Niyitegeka","slug":"theophile-niyitegeka","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":3}],"contributors":[{"id":160,"name":"Th\u00e9ophile Niyitegeka","slug":"theophile-niyitegeka","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":3}],"featured_image":{"id":2000069683,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton20673.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton20673.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton20673.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton20673.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton20673.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton20673.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20673"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20673\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000069683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20673"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=20673"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=20673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}