Kenyan gender expert receives prestigious Gates Foundation award for empowering women in nutrition

A Kenyan gender expert has been honoured for championing women’s empowerment to impact food security and improve nutrition for children and families.

Dr Jemimah Njuki, Kenya’s chief of economic empowerment at UN Women, was awarded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in New York.

The foundation said her work advances the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (Global Goals) with solutions to keep people healthy and nourished in a rapidly warming world.

Dr Njuki has more than 20 years of experience in the agriculture sector in Africa and Asia.

She was recognised event took place at the Goalkeepers 2024 awards ceremony, taking place during the United Nations General Assembly week.

The foundation said she has been facilitating women to exercise their own agency in nutrition and agriculture.

Witnessing the imbalance of power in agriculture firsthand inspired Dr Njuki to become a champion of gender equality and women’s empowerment in agriculture decision-making.

As the daughter of an agriculture extension officer who tended his own farm, Dr Njuki was born to work in the sector. But as a child, she was keenly aware that women bear a disproportionate burden of physical labor on farms. So, she resisted this path initially before finding her place by chance.

“Today, Dr Njuki works to improve nutrition for women and their families by facilitating women to exercise their own agency. She does this while engaging men and boys to understand the value of women making decisions,” the foundation said.

In 2021 at the UN Food Systems Summit, Dr Njuki helped to bring conversations around agriculture and gender equality together for the first time.

“By addressing key priorities around women’s land rights and closing the gender gaps in food insecurity, she is helping to ensure that the women producing the food do not go hungry,” the foundation said in a statement.

Dr Njuki was among the ten leaders honoured by the foundation at its event, Goalkeepers 2024: Recipe for Progress, for advancing the SDGs with solutions to keep people healthy and nourished in a rapidly warming world.

"I am honored to be named one of the @gatesfoundation 2024 Goalkeepers Champions ! This list recognises 10 individuals making transformative progress on critical challenges, with this year’s focus on tackling malnutrition," she said.

The annual event was hosted by Janet Mbugua, a Kenyan media personality and anchor.

“Goalkeepers is about bringing together a community of global changemakers who champion the Sustainable Development Goals to energize and inspire each other to continue making progress,” said Mark Suzman, CEO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

“This year, we’re focused on the more than 400 million children who aren’t getting the nutrients they need to grow and thrive. While climate change is making that challenge harder to solve, progress is possible. By scaling up existing tools, investing in promising research, and lifting up champions like the ones we’re celebrating today, we can help ensure all children can reach their full potential—and build global resilience as the world gets hotter.”

Guests at the event included Jon Batiste, singer, songwriter, and composer; Christy Turlington Burns, founder and president of Every Mother Counts; Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; Saul Guerrero Oteyza, Unicef’s senior advisor on financing for child nutrition and development; Muhammad Ali Pate, coordinating minister for health and social welfare of Nigeria; and Marcus Samuelsson, award-winning celebrity chef and philanthropist. Adriana Diaz, co-host of CBS Mornings Plus, and Francine Lacqua, anchor for Bloomberg Television, served as session moderators.

In 2023, the World Health Organization estimated that 148 million children experienced stunting, a condition where children don’t grow to their full potential mentally or physically, and 45 million children experienced wasting, a condition where children become weak and emaciated, leaving them at much greater risk of developmental delays and death. These are the most severe and irreversible forms of chronic and acute malnutrition.

The event followed last week’s release of the foundation’s eighth annual Goalkeepers report, “A Race to Nourish a Warming World.” The report finds that without immediate global action, climate change will condemn an additional 40 million children to stunting and 28 million more to wasting between 2024 and 2050. It highlights proven tools that are helping solve malnutrition, building people’s resilience to the worst impacts of climate change, and further driving down childhood deaths.

The report calls for renewed commitments to global health spending, including for Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, the Global Fund, and the Child Nutrition Fund.

The 2024 Global Goalkeeper Award, which recognises a leader who has driven progress on a global scale toward achieving the Global Goals, was presented to Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

The foundation said that in his first term, President Lula launched Bolsa Familia, a robust anti-poverty and social inclusion program that helped lift millions out of poverty and reduce the nation’s stunting rate from 37 per cent to seven per cent over three decades.

“President Lula is building on this domestic legacy to champion the Global Alliance on Hunger and Poverty as the signature initiative of Brazil’s G20 presidency. The initiative embraces proven, evidence-based strategies to improve food security, enhance health, reduce poverty, and promote equity at scale,” the foundation said.

The ten advocates, christened “Goalkeepers Champions” included experts, innovators, advocates, and leaders from around the world.

They included Dr Tahmeed Ahmed of Bangladesh is executive director of the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b), which is working with the government of Bangladesh to implement treatments for moderate and severe childhood malnutrition and to analyze barriers to effective implementation of maternal nutrition programs. He is also chair of the drafting committee of Bangladesh’s nutrition policy.

The others are Ladidi Bako-Aiyegbusi, the director of nutrition for the Ministry of Health of Nigeria, where she guides the federal government’s plans to train 38,180 frontline health workers to enhance maternal, infant, and childhood nutrition, communication, and services.

Beza Beshah Haile of Ethiopia, the founder and executive director of HOPE Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus (HOPE-SBH) in Ethiopia, has provided more than 3,000 families with information and skills training. Haile engages with government agencies to implement and enforce the national food fortification mandate, particularly the addition of folate for pregnant women.

Dr Zahra Hoodbhoy of Pakistan is assistant professor of research at Aga Khan University’s Department of Pediatrics and Child Health, where she combines public health interventions with AI tools to empower community workers to support mothers before and after delivery. She is also the primary investigator for a clinical trial for next-generation multiple micronutrient supplements. 

Dr Nancy Krebs of the United States is a professor of pediatrics and nutrition at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. Her extensive research has influenced global health organizations, including the World Health Organization and the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Dr Sabin Nsanzimana of Rwanda, the minister of health, is prioritising a range of maternal and child nutrition and health interventions—including launching a multiple micronutrient supplementation pilot program for pregnant women.

Lilian dos Santos Rahal of Brazil, the national secretary for food and nutrition security, has been a leading voice to address Brazilian hunger and malnutrition.

Bhavani Shankar of the UK is a professorial research fellow at the University of Sheffield, where he researches food, health, and environmental sustainability. He is also co-lead of INFUSION, a five-year program seeking to better understand how rural food markets function nutritionally and to establish, test, and deliver evidence for market interventions that improve the availability and affordability of nutrient-dense foods in rural Indian communities.

Ratan Tata of India is chairman of Tata Trusts, which have supported the prevention and recovery of malnourished children through improved feeding and health care across India. They have pioneered efforts in food and nutrition security through the development of sustainable, diverse food systems—including fortification of salt, milk and edible oils with essential micronutrients.