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Over the last 2 decades, many African countries have undergone dietary and nutrition transitions fueled by globalization, rapid urbanization, and development. These changes have altered African food environments and, subsequently, dietary behaviors, including food acquisition and consumption. Dietary patterns associated with the nutrition transition have contributed to Africa's complex burden of malnutrition—obesity and other diet-related noncommunicable diseases (DR-NCDs)—along with persistent food insecurity and undernutrition. Available evidence links unhealthy or obesogenic food environments (including those that market and offer energy-dense, nutrient-poor foods and beverages) with suboptimal diets and associated adverse health outcomes. Elsewhere, governments have responded with policies to improve food environments. However, in Africa, the necessary research and policy action have received insufficient attention. Contextual evidence to motivate, enable, and create supportive food environments in Africa for better population health is urgently needed. In November 2020, the Measurement, Evaluation, Accountability, and Leadership Support for Noncommunicable Diseases Prevention Project (MEALS4NCDs) convened the first Africa Food Environment Research Network Meeting (FERN2020). This 3-d virtual meeting brought researchers from around the world to deliberate on future directions and research priorities related to improving food environments and nutrition across the African continent. The stakeholders shared experiences, best practices, challenges, and opportunities for improving the healthfulness of food environments and related policies in low- and middle-income countries. In this article, we summarize the proceedings and research priorities identified in the meeting to advance the food environment research agenda in Africa, and thus contribute to the promotion of healthier food environments to prevent DR-NCDs, and other forms of malnutrition.

Non-PR, IFPRI1; Rwanda SSP; CRP2; 1 Fostering Climate-Resilient and Sustainable Food Supply; 2 Promoting Healthy Diets and Nutrition for all; 3 Building Inclusive and Efficient Markets, Trade Systems, and Food Industry; 4 Transforming Agricultural and Rural Economies; 5 Strengthening Institutions and Governance; DCA, DSGD; PIM, CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM), As Rwanda journeys towards a broad-based social and economic transformation, there are opportunities for the country’s food systems to become a key driver on that journey. This idea has attracted considerable attention in the national consultations conducted in the run-up to the United Nations Food Systems Summit (UNFSS) in September 2021, at the summit itself, in the post-summit actions that Rwanda is now pursuing, and in a series of prior case studies on Rwanda’s food system (Adolph et al. 2021; Guijt et al. 2021; Malabo Montpellier Panel 2021). This note summarizes a recent diagnostic of Rwanda’s food systems and the policy landscape that shapes them. Emphasis is placed on six inter-related clusters: diet quality and nutrition security; livelihoods equity; environmental resilience; agricultural productivity; infrastructure capacity; and financing and investment. Overall findings suggest an opportunity for a tangible shift in how public policy in Rwanda approaches its food systems and how the systems contribute to the broader national transformation process. We offer several policy recommendations to support the design of a coherent country strategy and policy framework. First, strengthen existing entities and mechanisms, and innovate on them. Second, develop a national food systems transformation strategy that is integrative, multi-sectoral, and action-oriented. Third, innovate on existing programs. Fourth, allow for learning through both success and failure. Fifth, invest in rigorous impact evaluation.

Non-PR, IFPRI1; Rwanda SSP; CRP2; 1 Fostering Climate-Resilient and Sustainable Food Supply; 2 Promoting Healthy Diets and Nutrition for all; 3 Building Inclusive and Efficient Markets, Trade Systems, and Food Industry; 4 Transforming Agricultural and Rural Economies; 5 Strengthening Institutions and Governance; DCA, DSGD; PIM, CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM), This paper provides a diagnostic of Rwanda’s food systems and the policy landscape that shapes it. It aims to inform national and local conversations on Rwanda’s food systems transformation—an idea that has attracted considerable attention in national consultations conducted in the run-up to the United Nations Food Systems Summit in September 2021, at the summit itself, and in the post-summit actions that Rwanda is now pursuing. A food system comprises the full range of actors and activities originating from agriculture, livestock, forestry, or fisheries, as well as the broader economic, societal, and natural environments in which they operate. An inclusive and sustainable food systems transformation is a process of growth and development that is profitable for the full range of individual actors engaged in the system, beneficial for society including marginalized and vulnerable groups, and advantageous for the natural environment. Rwanda’s journey towards a food systems transformation is well captured in Vision 2050, the National Strategy for Transformation (NST 1), and strategic plans for sectors such as agriculture, health, nutrition, commerce, and the environment. Their priorities are echoed in ongoing programs and investments of the government, its development partners, the private sector, and civil society. Nonetheless, there are still challenges facing Rwanda’s efforts to sustain and accelerate progress along this journey. Efforts to overcome these challenges call for a deeper and more significant shift in thinking—informed by the food systems perspective—that is highlighted by stronger multi-sectoral approaches to problem-solving. Overall findings suggest an opportunity for a tangible shift in how public policy in Rwanda approaches its food systems and how the systems contribute to the broader national transformation process. This means addressing how balances are struck—and tradeoffs are managed—between and among agriculture, nutrition, health, and the envi

Spontaneously fermented food products contain a complex, natural microbial community with potential probiotic activity. The addition of a health-promoting, probiotic bacterium to these products ensures the delivery of that probiotic activity to consumers. Here, we assess the microbial community of a traditional Senegalese milk product produced by spontaneous fermentation, called lait caillé. We produced the lait caillé in a traditional way and added a probiotic starter containing Lactobacillus rhamnosus yoba 2012 to the traditional process. We found various species that are known for their ability to ferment milk, including species from the genera Lactobacillus, Acetobacter, Lactococcus, and Streptococcus. Our results show that the addition of L. rhamnosus to the inoculum, can result in detectable levels of this strain in the final product, ranging between 0.2 and 1 percent of the total bacterial population. Subsequent rounds of fermentation using passive back-slopping without the addition of new L. rhamnosus led to a loss of this strain from the community of fermenting bacteria. Our results suggest that the addition of probiotic strains at every fermentation cycle can enrich the existing complex communities of traditionally fermented lait caillé while traditional bacterial strains remain dominant in the bacterial communities

Locally produced probiotic fermented foods can be suitable for a range of appropriate, cost-effective, scalable, and sustainable approaches implemented at the household, community, and market levels.