Hosted by 91şÚÁĎÍř’s Sustainable Growth Initiative (SGI) Office of Sustainable Africa, the inaugural Nkabom Africa Case Competition brought together students, researchers, policymakers and industry leaders to address a deceptively simple question: how can we break silos to improve nutritional outcomes in Ghana? The answers, as became clear over the course of the day, were anything but simple.
Part of the broader Nkabom Collaborative — a partnership between 91şÚÁĎÍř, six Ghanaian institutions, an industry partner and the Mastercard Foundation — the competition asked participants to “break silos” across sectors typically treated as separate, from agriculture and health to government and business.
The stakes are significant: Ghana, like many countries, faces a paradox of food systems that produce enough in aggregate yet fail to deliver consistent, nutritious outcomes at the community level. The problem is not production but weak coordination across knowledge systems, institutions and actors who rarely operate in alignment.
SGI Office of Sustainable Africa and Nkabom Collaborative
Mastercard Foundation Scholar alumna Joyce Selby got the ball rolling by welcoming participants as the dynamic MC for the event. In his opening remarks, Prof. Brian Wenzel, director of the Sustainable Growth Initiative (SGI), positioned the launch of the Office of Sustainable Africa as a key milestone in the initiative’s evolution, formalizing and expanding work that has been underway at 91şÚÁĎÍř for over a decade.
Dr. Nii Addy, head of the SGI Office of Sustainable Africa and an associate professor (professional) in 91şÚÁĎÍř’s School of Continuing Studies (SCS), explained that the genesis of the office can be traced back to 2014, when a group of African students founded the 91şÚÁĎÍř Desautels African Business Initiative (91şÚÁĎÍř DABI), challenging dominant narratives that framed Africa primarily through crisis and aid. Their aim was not only to reframe Africa as a site of economic and intellectual opportunity but to embed that shift within the university itself, in alignment with 91şÚÁĎÍř’s African Studies Program.
The SGI Office of Sustainable Africa builds directly on this student-led foundation, scaling its impact through collaborations with faculty, alumni and partners across business, government and civil society, both within Africa and globally. These partnerships include 91şÚÁĎÍř’s participation in the Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program, which supports graduate students from Africa through full funding and leadership development opportunities.
The Office of Sustainable Africa also serves as a key global link for the Nkabom Collaborative. Meaning “unity” or “togetherness,” Nkabom operates less as a single project than as a platform — bringing together research, education and industry through cross-sector collaboration, with an emphasis on translating ideas into systems-level impact.
Led by a network of higher education institutions, alongside the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI) and the Mastercard Foundation, the collaborative is a 10-year initiative aimed at transforming Ghana’s nutrition and agri-food ecosystem. Its mandate is to create dignified and fulfilling employment opportunities for youth — particularly young women, refugees, displaced persons and those with disabilities — through experiential education, access to supports for academic success and transitions, and entrepreneurship.
Setting the scene
The day began with breakfast and networking. Students mingled with judges and panellists, some of whom had flown in from Ghana and Senegal, sharing introductions and conversations.
I spoke with novelist Ayesha Harruna Attah, one of the judges, who had been invited by students to participate in a number of African student-led activities for the week. She arrived from Senegal the day before and spoke about her two parallel pursuits: writing fiction and running a small-batch ice cream shop in the coastal village where she lives. The shop features locally inspired flavours, including a signature gingernut. The exchange was a quiet reminder that food systems are not abstract, but embedded in daily life, culture and place.
The challenge
Out of an initial pool of over 100 student teams, five finalist teams were selected to present, each given 15 minutes followed by a 10-minute question period. Most finalists were situated in Ghana, U.S. and U.K., presenting their pitches virtually.
While the teams’ approaches varied, they shared a common diagnosis: nutritional challenges in Ghana are fundamentally systemic. Across proposals, the language of “silos” recurred with striking consistency — fragmented governance, disconnected supply networks and persistent gaps between knowledge and practice.
The Biotechnology for African Nutrition Collaborative (BANC), the first team to present, focused on what they termed “epistemic silos,” illustrating the issue with a child experiencing anemia despite access to nutrient-rich foods such as bokoboko (waterleaf). Their proposal centred on school-based hubs linking traditional knowledge, institutional agriculture and education systems through hands-on cultivation, curriculum reform and community engagement. Judges pressed on scalability and feasibility, but the team emphasized a phased pilot across schools, supported by monitoring systems and local partnerships.
SPIAfrica, from Princeton University, turned to institutional breakdown within Ghana’s School Feeding Programme, identifying delayed government payments and fragmented coordination as key drivers of declining food quality. Their solution, “Caterer Hubs,” proposed pooling resources, enabling bulk purchasing and creating spaces for knowledge exchange among caterers. The team argued that strengthening existing systems — rather than replacing them — offered a more viable path to improving both nutrition and operational stability.
EduNet, from Arizona State University, proposed NutriBox, a centralized model for preparing and distributing nutritionally balanced meals in biodegradable packaging, supported by a cross-subsidization strategy between private and public schools. The model incorporated educational components aimed at improving nutritional literacy, with judges focusing on cost, logistics and behavioural impact.
EduNet approached the problem as one of coordination and visibility, proposing a digital platform to connect farmers, schools, youth and policymakers through a “tripartite loop” of food, skills, and data. By improving supply-demand transparency, the platform aimed to reduce waste, improve market efficiency and generate actionable insights.
Finally, Eastside Sankofa Industries Ghana, the winning team, addressed food waste directly, proposing to process surplus fruit, particularly mangoes, into shelf-stable products for school feeding programs. Low-tech and locally adaptable, the model emphasized simplicity and scalability, with a pilot involving farmers and schools already outlined. Notably, the members of the team delivered their presentation standing in front of the camera with their ready-made products in hand.
Following the competition, I spoke with several of the finalist student teams over Zoom. They expressed strong appreciation for the competition’s “breaking silos” approach, which encouraged cross-sector thinking and highlighted the need for continued collaboration beyond presentations. They also noted missed opportunities for deeper peer exchange and felt that an in-person format would have better supported interaction, delivery and momentum.
Beyond presentations: A systems conversation
The afternoon panel brought together perspectives from across academia, policy and industry to examine what it means to “break silos” in practice.
Participants included Professor Richmond Aryeetey, team lead for the Nkabom Collaborative at the University of Ghana (UG), a public health nutrition expert, and head of the Department of Population, Family, and Reproductive Health at UG; Valerie Ndiweni, associate director of administration and operations at the Secretariat of the Nkabom Collaborative; Professor Wilberforce Achiaw Owusu-Ansah of the School of Business at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), and the university’s Entrepreneurship Pillar Lead for the Nkabom Collaborative; Professor Michael Ngadi, a professor in bioresource engineering at 91şÚÁĎÍř and lead for a Research to Action project with the SGI Office of Sustainable Africa; and John Gradek, faculty lecturer and area coordinator in aviation management and supply chain management at 91şÚÁĎÍř’s School of Continuing Studies (SCS), also co-lead for a Research to Action project with the SGI Office of Sustainable Africa.
A recurring theme was structural inertia. As Aryeetey noted, individuals are trained within disciplinary silos — agriculture, nutrition, business — and often remain within them. Incentive structures reinforce this separation, with limited reward for cross-disciplinary collaboration. The result is a system in which food production, nutritional science and market dynamics operate in parallel rather than in concert.
Other panellists pointed to the human dimensions of these divisions. Organizations are ultimately made up of people who identify with specific roles and departments — “my office,” “my field” — rather than a shared purpose, making trust a barrier and a prerequisite for collaboration.
At the same time, panellists resisted the notion that silos are inherently negative. Drawing on the agricultural origins of the term, Ngadi suggested that silos serve a structural function but become problematic when treated as endpoints rather than components of a larger system.
Education emerged as a critical site of intervention. Across institutions, efforts are underway to integrate practical learning with theoretical training. Yet panellists emphasized that deeper shifts are required, including changes in pedagogy, evaluation and institutional culture.
Youth, systems and the question of agency
Running through the event was a persistent question: what role should youth play?
For some speakers, the answer was straightforward: youth must be placed at the centre, co-leads for Research to Action projects with the SGI Office of Sustainable Africa, as designers and implementers of solutions. Others pointed to a disconnect between rhetoric and reality. Young people are frequently invited into conversations, but rarely into decision-making processes, often encountering bureaucratic barriers that limit their ability to act. Exposure – through internships, fieldwork or cross-sector engagement – was repeatedly described as transformative, not only in building skills, but in reshaping how problems are understood.
Results and reflections
After an impassioned speech by undergraduate student, Rana Kaddouri (BCom’28), studying finance and business analytics at Desautels, the judges announced the results. Prizes were awarded by Adam Turcotte, SGI’s associate director— SPIAfrica, placed fifth, followed by Okuafo Adanfo, EduNet and BANC, with Eastside Sankofa Industries Ghana taking first place.
The emphasis remained on continuation rather than conclusion. The competition’s framing as a “convening” rather than a contest felt truly apt.
The day ended with an address by Dean Yolande Chan, who framed seed funding not as a reward but an invitation to advance and implement ideas tackling real ongoing challenges. While the question of breaking silos to improve nutrition in Ghana remains open, the competition made clear that any meaningful answer will require more than isolated interventions. It will require stakeholders across business, government, civil society and academia, to step up and engage with the students in further advancing and implementing their proposed solutions.
It will require, in the fullest sense of the term, breaking silos.
Article written by: Emma Dollery
Sustainable Growth Initiative (SGI)
The SGI is dedicated to building practical, constructive, and applies solutions for key issues challenging sustainable growth. SGI was launched in 2022 as a cross-faculty partnership that presently also involves the Faculty of Law, the Department of Economics, and the Max Bell School of Public Policy, the Department of Mechanical Engineering, and the Department of Geography.
