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Vitamin A deficiency is one of the most damaging forms of undernourishment. In Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), 43 million children under the age of five are vitamin A deficient. Every year, more than 4.8 million children in the region die before the age of five. During the past decade, considerable investments have been made to build the evidence base to show that pro-vitamin A rich, orange-fleshed sweetpotato (OFSP) can be a costeffective means to combat vitamin A deficiency in children under five years of age. OFSP has shown to be an extremely rich source of bio-available pro-vitamin A, which is largely retained when the sweetpotato is boiled, steamed or roasted. Research has demonstrated that young children can meet their daily vitamin A requirements from just one medium-size sweetpotato root. Evidence from research confirms higher adoption rates and greater increases in vitamin A intake among young children and women of reproductive age when agricultural interventions are combined with nutrition and behaviour change communication and market facilitation. Lessons from various projects indicate that the time is ripe to invest in larger programmes that are adequately resourced and are able to realize the potential benefits from OFSP in fighting vitamin A deficiency and hunger. The Reaching Agents of Change (RAC) project, implemented by the International Potato Center (CIP) and Helen Keller International, advocates for increased investment in OFSP to combat vitamin A deficiency among young children and women of reproductive age. RAC also builds the institutional capacity to design and implement gender-sensitive projects to ensure wide access and utilization of OFSP in SSA. Discussions with regional advocates and champions identified a strategic role that regional economic communities and their member states could play in promoting investments in OFSP through agriculture investment plans informed by the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP). However, potential investors often raised questions regarding what it would take to invest, how much to invest and how to invest in order to improve food and nutritional security, reduce vitamin A deficiency and increase incomes of rural households. RAC leadership decided to develop the OFSP investment guides to help investors and project implementers dealing with OFSP to answer these questions. The decision tool was developed through an extensive consultative process that included key stakeholders in SSA. In developing the investment guide products, the RAC team first produced a draft, which it presented to the RAC champions and advocates for comments. Later, RAC engaged a high calibre consultant to help repackage the information gathered and produce targeted investment guide products. This package of investment guides comprises three products-an investment guide, an implementation guide and a summary (each with PowerPoint presentations for the online version). The decision tool comes complete with an interactive Excel budget calculator. In working out the ...

There are many definitions, philosophies, and approaches to agricultural extension or advisory services, and views have changed over time. While extension traditionally implied training and dissemination of messages about specific technologies, more recently it has expanded to include assisting farmers to form groups, dealing with marketing of agricultural products, INTERNATIONAL FOOD POLICY RESEARCH INSTITUTE

Thanks to Miles Brendin of Well Told Story for guiding the RAC team to transform learning to lessons learned, Christine Bukania and Kellen Kebaara for assisting with the editing and layout of this booklet, and the Communications and Public Awareness Department in CIP-Lima for support in designing the cover.

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