A search strategy to identify potential initiatives was developed using the PRISMA extension for scoping reviews (Tricco et al., 2018), the online template from Open Science Framework (OSF) Registries, and through discussions with researchers at Tufts University. Since the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement, launched in 2010, had inspired a new way of working collaboratively with the private sector to end malnutrition, initiatives established after 2010 till March 2024 were included. An initial scan to identify the initiatives was done using the search term ‘multistakeholder initiatives for food and nutrition’ on Google. The first 10 pages were screened for relevance by reviewing the titles, as the following pages did not provide any added data. This approach was used to identify any existing literature or reports on civil society and development agencies-led initiatives engaging the private sector to improve nutrition. Through this search, we identified a review conducted by the World Wildlife Fund (Harvey and Trewern, 2018). This reference was used to begin the identification of potential nutrition initiatives engaging the private sector in Africa.

A secondary search was conducted using the study protocol as guidance on the Summons discovery service at the University of Reading, U.K. This provides a comprehensive search across a wide range of library resources, including e-books, journal articles, newspaper articles, and more, through a single search box (University of Reading, 2025). For the search in Summons, 18 search terms were used as shown in Annex I. This search resulted in 62 peer-reviewed articles. Titles of these articles were reviewed for relevance, and 17 articles were shortlisted for abstract review. After removing duplicates, 11 full-text publications were reviewed to identify relevant initiatives.

An additional Google search was conducted using the search term ‘multi stakeholder nutrition.’ The first one hundred titles were reviewed for relevance, as no additional data was being identified thereafter. This search identified a further 29 articles and reports, which had some data on multi-stakeholder initiatives. Few initiatives were included based on the author’s knowledge of this field. Generative artificial intelligence (Chat GPT) was also used to complement the search and identify additional initiatives. The list of questions used in Chat GPT is provided in Annex I.

If any initiative included a nutrition topic, it was added to the list of initiatives. Once the list of potential nutrition initiatives was ready, detailed data from online documents was reviewed and added to a pre-designed Excel template. The completed Excel template is included in Annex II.

Potential initiatives included in the list were screened using the following inclusion and exclusion criteria:

Inclusion:

Exclusion:

This study was part of a larger project—The Food Prices for Nutrition, which shows how the cost and affordability of healthy diets can be used to monitor food access and guide intervention (Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, 2025). Since the project focused specifically on ‘Nutrition’, only initiatives with a direct nutrition-related approach were included. Initiatives targeting food production and working with farmers were excluded, as their main objective was to boost production and resilience among farmers. Even when nutrition was part of some initiatives, it was aimed at the farmers themselves rather than consumers in the market.

Once the shortlist of 11 initiatives was created, an additional search of the initiatives’ websites, publications, project reports, and monitoring and evaluation frameworks was conducted. Any additional data identified was added to the Excel template (Annex II).

A qualitative interview template was developed, and a mock interview was conducted with an expert at Tufts University before the submission and approval by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of the University (Annex III). The authors agreed that the interviews would be iterative and used the template for guidance purposes only.

The key individuals from civil society and development agencies who were identified for the shortlisted initiatives were approached via LinkedIn or email (June 2024) to confirm their interest and availability for an interview and discuss their initiative in detail. The interview questions were shared in advance so that the contacted representative could recommend the best person within the organisation to answer the questions. Interviews with private sector representatives from the shortlisted initiatives were not conducted, as a separate agency was handling that work as part of a parallel project.

One initiative declined to participate, and no response was received from another initiative. Nine semi-structured virtual interviews were conducted between June and July 2024. The interviews were recorded and transcribed. The transcripts were used to create a summary of responses to the interview questions. All interview transcripts and notes were anonymized and stored in secure files for data confidentiality. The interviews provided an opportunity for an in-depth understanding of the initiative.

A thematic analysis was conducted to analyse the interview data on factors contributing to the development and function of the initiatives. Data from the interview transcripts was read and re-read by the authors to become familiar with the content. The authors highlighted meaningful segments of data and labelled them in three overarching themes: successes, challenges, and recommendations, aligned with the interview questions. Each sentence in the interview transcript was reviewed and color-coded to identify sub-themes within the three overarching themes. Five sub-themes were identified for success and challenges, respectively, and eight sub-themes were identified for recommendations. The sub-themes for successes and challenges are arranged in descending order, with the most frequently mentioned appearing at the top.

To minimize bias and validate the accuracy of the findings, one author coded the in-depth interview data on success and challenges for all shortlisted initiatives, and another author coded data on recommendations. An independent review of the data coded by both authors was conducted by the third author. Any disagreements among authors were resolved through discussions. Data from the interviews was cross-validated and triangulated with data from websites and other descriptive documents for similarities and differences.

We identified 3 potential initiatives from the review by Harvey and Trewern (2018). No additional nutrition initiatives were identified through Summons. 11 initiatives engaging the private sector for improving food security and nutrition were identified through a secondary online search. A further three initiatives were added based on the author’s knowledge of the field. Thirty-one additional initiatives were identified using generative artificial intelligence. A total of 48 potential nutrition initiatives were identified and added to the Excel template provided in Annex II.

Figure 1 outlines the results of the shortlisting of nutrition-focused initiatives. Of the 48 initiatives, 24 were multi-country. The other 24 initiatives were Africa-only, which were focused on agriculture and engaged farmers, and were not included. From 24 multi-country initiatives, five (5) initiatives were shortlisted for in-depth review based on the defined inclusion and exclusion criteria:

Three (3) others were added considering their potential to influence private sector actions, even though they did not qualify the inclusion criteria:

Additionally, three SBN country-level initiatives (Ethiopia, Nigeria, Tanzania) were included, given their relevance to this study and suggestions by SBN Global. This was crucial to obtaining a better understanding of the activities of these initiatives at the country level. Therefore, a total of 11 nutrition initiatives engaging the private sector in Africa were shortlisted.

An overview of these 11 initiatives is provided in Table 1 and described below.

Most of these initiatives (SBN Global and Tanzania, ATNI, BPNR, and GNR) were founded between 2011 and 2015. Country networks for SBN (Nigeria and Ethiopia) were established between 2016 and 2020. FSD and ZHPSP are the most recent initiatives (Figure 2). All initiatives were engaging diverse and multiple private sector actors, ranging from large multi-national organisations to micro, small, and medium enterprises. However, initiatives such as SUN Business Networks in Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Tanzania were primarily engaging micro-small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) to enhance their contributions to nutrition. Despite the efforts to engage the private sector actors throughout the food value chain, most of the actors engaged were focused on food manufacturing and processing.

The civil society and/or development agencies were engaging the private sector using either one or a combination of the following approaches (Figure 3):

SBN Global and national networks (Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Tanzania) and BCtA used all three approaches to engage the private sector. Other initiatives used a combination of two approaches (BPNR, PSM, ATNI, ZHPSP). GNR and FSD interacted with the private sector using a single approach.

Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) played a key role across many of the nutrition-focused initiatives. It is the lead organisation for the six initiatives (FSD/FSCD, SBN Global, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Tanzania, BPNR), a donor for one initiative (ZHPSP), and has some supporting roles in two other initiatives (GNR and ATNI).

This paper has attempted to identify and describe civil society and development agency-led initiatives that engage with the private sector to improve nutrition in Africa. The goal of these initiatives is to influence practices or monitor how serious the private sector actors are about improving nutrition, and in some cases, help them when resources are constrained to make the necessary changes.

We found only a few initiatives led by civil society and development agencies engaging diverse private sector actors for nutrition. These initiatives focus on influencing the private sector to manufacture and sell nutritious foods with an emphasis on dietary adequacy, and on reducing the intake of nutrients of public health concern. Our findings are unlike those of Heren et al., who reported that multi-stakeholder platforms focused on nutrient adequacy rather than moderation (Herens et al., 2022). The shortlisted nutrition-focused initiatives in Africa were multi-country and were developed by civil society and development agencies located in the Global North. These emerged possibly because of the Scaling Up Nutrition Movement in 2010. Most of these initiatives were engaging with the large private sector actors, manufacturing, and processing food. These findings are like the study by Slater et al., which identified 45 food systems multi-stakeholder initiatives. These initiatives were dominated by multi-national corporations engaged in food processing and were based in high-income countries of the Global North (Slater et al., 2024). Our findings also agree with another study that examined multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs) to drive healthier and more sustainable food systems. It identified and categorized actors within these MSIs, drawing on social network analysis to provide insights into actor centrality, power structures, and how this might impact MSIs’ potential to drive transformative change. Thirty MSIs were included and had 813 actors. Most actors were based in high-income countries (HICs) (n = 548, 67%) (Van Den Akker et al., 2024).

We found that diverse private sector actors were engaged by some of these initiatives, including multi-national companies and micro, small, and medium enterprises. The engaged private sector actors were working on diverse foods throughout the food value chain, from food processing to retail. Even though engagement with private sector actors in food retail was noted in some initiatives like ATNI, this engagement is still at a nascent stage. Limited engagement with the private sector actors involved in food storage, transport, trade, transformation, retail, and provisioning was also noted by Herens et al. (2022) and another study (Harvey and Trewern, 2018).

Our study found that many civil society and development agencies are engaging the private sector to improve nutrition. However, Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) was identified as one of the organisations with footprints across most of the nutrition-focused initiatives engaging the private sector. It was either the lead organisation or a donor, or an advisor in these initiatives. These findings are similar to those reported by Van Den Akker et al., who, in addition to identifying the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations and United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) as organisations with connections with maximum multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs), also listed GAIN as an actor with connections to MSIs (Van Den Akker et al., 2024). International civil society and development agencies such as FAO, UNDP, WFP, Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN), the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), were also identified as lead organisations for 89 multi-stakeholder platforms in Bangladesh, Vietnam, Ethiopia, and Nigeria (Herens et al., 2022).

Our study found that the nutrition initiatives engaging the private sector were funded from multiple sources and that the majority was from grants to implement projects over a specified period. This funding model poses a challenge to the long-term sustainability of such initiatives. Indeed, a 2021 study reported that nearly all multi-stakeholder platforms were initiated and/or facilitated with donor support (Van Ewijk and Ros-Tonen, 2021).

We also found that all Africa-only initiatives focused on agriculture and are engaging farmers to help them improve their food production and/or access markets to sell their produce. While a nutrition-sensitive approach has started to emerge in some of these initiatives, nutrition is not their primary focus. Our findings are in line with those reported by a systematic literature review on food-related multistakeholder platforms (MSPs) in sub-Saharan Africa (Van Ewijk and Ros-Tonen, 2021). The MSPs included were focused on crops and integrated management systems, and environment management for agricultural development. Additionally, the reported outcomes of the review included changes in agricultural practices and increased market access for the farmers. Another study in Nigeria reported that several non-governmental organisations or civil society-driven MSPs are addressing the development of the agricultural sector for improved food security from a market-led perspective (Herens et al., 2022).

The initiatives involving multinational companies engaged these actors either by facilitating private sector commitments to improve nutrition and monitoring the same (e.g., ATNI, GNR, and ZHPSP) or by convening and collaborating with these actors. Initiatives engaging micro-small and medium enterprises (SBN country networks), in addition to these two approaches, incorporated a capacity-building aspect to ensure the continued engagement of their private sector members. These findings are similar to findings of a study exploring multi-stakeholder platforms in Bangladesh, Vietnam, Ethiopia, and Nigeria, which reported that various civil society and development agencies engaged the private sector actors through coordination, capacity building, and knowledge sharing activities (Herens et al., 2022).

We also noted a few connections between nutrition initiatives. Only initiatives that had both multi-country and international presence, such as Scaling Up Nutrition Business Networks (Global and Country), were learning from each other, facilitated by their international office. Our findings are similar to those reported by Heren et al., which noted that different multi-stakeholder platforms act within their own local or regional environment rather than reaching out to other multi-stakeholder platforms (Herens et al., 2022).

The successes of nutrition focused initiatives reported by our study were—a growing recognition and increased willingness among governmental and non-governmental stakeholders to engage with the private sector actors to address malnutrition, increased engagement of diverse private sector actors with non-governmental and development agencies to improve nutrition, strengthened governance for private sector engagement in nutrition, increased adoption and implementation of best practices among diverse stakeholders and development of some evidence-based food policies, regulations, and national nutrition plans. Although these noted successes are of the initiatives most of which have developed in the last decade, these primarily reflect activities and outputs identified through interviewee responses responses, supplemented by a few independent evaluations available in the public domain. Our findings are like a study evaluating whether multi-stakeholder platforms (MSPs) are effective approaches to agri-food sustainability. This study reported that the effectiveness of MSPs is primarily framed as successfully delivering activities and outputs, such as platform members. It is not assessed in terms of the role of the initiative in influencing a specific food sector. The study recommends that more MSPs should undertake better assessments of their contribution to food system transformation and report publicly on these results to generate a clear understanding of whether and how MSPs are capable of catalysing more sustainable food systems (Thorpe et al., 2022). Some additional evidence also notes that MSPs may play a role in transforming food systems (Herens et al., 2022). Some other independent evidence on multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs) on food systems transformation questions the legitimacy and influence of such initiatives (Slater et al., 2024). Another study highlights that MSIs engaging the private sector may reflect rather than challenge existing power structures, thus serving to maintain the status quo. It recommends a need to critically examine their ability to drive global food system transformation (Van Den Akker et al., 2024). Herens et al. also concluded that existing multi-stakeholder platforms may have limited capacity to truly transform the food systems (Herens et al., 2022).

Challenges noted for the development and function of nutrition focused initiatives in our study were ensuring adequate financial and human resources, unclear business rationale for investing in nutrition, ensuring the continued engagement of initiative private sector members, donors and partners, and other stakeholders, establishing a robust structure and composition of the initiative and managing the mistrust of the private sector including conflict of interest. These findings are aligned with the study by Heren et al., which reported that funding of the multi-stakeholder platforms was often project or programme-based, with a set timeframe, based on core funding from key international donors. Upon completion of the assignment or closure of the project, many multi-stakeholder platforms tended to turn inactive or fall apart. The study also noted other barriers and challenges hindering MSPs from being more adaptive in food systems governance, such as limited human and financial resources, conflicts of interest, coordination problems, lack of continuity, multiple national policies, and unclear structure and rules. The study also highlighted that the sustainability of such platforms is a critical challenge (Herens et al., 2022). Another study also highlighted the challenge of managing conflicts of interest in initiatives involving the multi-national food industry manufacturing ultra-processed foods (Slater et al., 2024).

This study has a few limitations. There is no database of nutrition initiatives led by civil society organisations or development agencies engaging with the private sector, and our attempt to create one might have missed some. The search was only done using the English language, and there may be initiatives with data in other languages. Even though the study focused on nutrition initiatives in Africa, an in-depth evaluation was done on multi-country nutrition-specific initiatives that were initiated in the Global North and were operating in Africa. Exclusion of Africa-only nutrition-sensitive initiatives based on the stringent inclusion and exclusion criteria could have introduced some selection bias. In addition, we reported short-term success and challenges of the shortlisted initiatives (within the last 10 years). Since the success of such initiatives takes longer, the actual success and outcomes are yet to be seen. Also lack of consensus and framing of what success entails within the complex initiatives is a limitation of this study. Lastly, the reported successes and challenges represent the perspective of civil society and development agencies. This study does not include the perspective of private sector members engaged in such initiatives. Despite these limitations, this is one of the first studies to identify and describe civil society and development agencies-led nutrition initiatives engaging the private sector in Africa and report their success and challenges. These findings can provide useful guidance for future nutrition initiatives engaging the private sector.

To address the limitations of the current study, future research could focus on in-depth evaluations of nutrition-sensitive Africa-only initiatives engaging farmers. Research efforts are also needed for the development of metrics that can help quantify the success of such initiatives. Additionally, there is a need to systematically assess the ability of these initiatives to influence private sector actions to improve nutrition.