Every Vaclav Smil book that I own is marked up with lots of notes that I take while reading. Invention and Innovation is no exception. Even when I disagree with him, I learn a lot from him.
I’ve just wrapped up a busy five-day trip to Ethiopia and Nigeria. It’s the kind of trip that’s both tiring and energizing at the same time. Even though I stay in touch with a lot of partners in both countries—the Gates Foundation has been funding work in them for more than 15 years—there’s nothing quite like visiting to see the work in action.
Whenever I get home from a trip like this, friends are curious to hear how it went. Here’s what I’m telling them. From 2000 to 2019 or so, Ethiopia and Nigeria led the way on dramatic improvements in health and poverty that rippled across Sub-Saharan Africa. Since then, the pandemic, extreme weather, and political and economic instability have set both countries back, along with much of the rest of the continent. But as I saw on this trip, there’s great work going on in both places that makes me optimistic about their future, and Africa’s.
I want to share a few photos from the week. Thanks to everyone who shared their time and insights with me, including Prime Minister Ahmed of Ethiopia, Nigerian health minister Muhammad Ali Pate, and a special guest who came along for the trip: the amazing musician Jon Batiste. The foundation will be working with African partners even more in the future, and based on what I saw this week, my next visit will be just as inspiring.
I arrived in Addis Ababa on Sunday, and on Monday morning, I took a two-hour car ride with Prime Minister Ahmed to visit a cluster of wheat farms in Oromia region. On the way, we talked about a lot of different topics, including health care and the economy. But we probably spent the most time discussing the country’s amazing gains in agriculture, and the prime minister spoke with particular pride about one big accomplishment: Ethiopia no longer needs to import any wheat. It grows all its own.
The farm cluster we visited is a great example of how they’re doing it. Three years ago, the fields there weren’t farmed at all. Today, nearly 2,400 farmers there are working almost 100,000 acres of wheat, and they’re using innovative approaches to get the most out of the land. Among other things, they’ve adopted new varieties of wheat that resist disease and tolerate extreme weather. They’ve also created early warning systems that can detect and stop crop diseases before they spread too widely.
As a result of these reforms across the country, the average Ethiopian farmer now gets 70 percent more wheat per hectare than they did 15 years ago—a fantastic accomplishment that the foundation has been proud to support.
On the way back to Addis, we stopped at a poultry farm established by the Oromia government to help young people enter the poultry industry. They work there for two or three years, earn a salary and some start-up money, and then go off to start their own agriculture businesses. It was a noisy place—the farm has 20,000 chickens! But it was exciting to meet some aspiring farmers and businesspeople with big dreams.
After the poultry visit, I got to have lunch with the Prime Minister and three other government leaders: Dr. Mekdes Daba, the minister of health; Shimelis Abdisa, the President of Oromia region; and Dr. Mengistu Bekele, the head of the health bureau in Oromia. We discussed the major challenges of the past few years—including COVID and regional conflict—and how the government is using evidence-based strategies to overcome those challenges and make progress on polio, nutrition, immunization, and other issues.
From Ethiopia, I headed to Nigeria. In addition to having a great phone call with President Tinubu, I had a chance to meet in person with Nigeria's health minister, Muhammed Pate, and state leaders. We discussed the country's efforts to improve its primary healthcare systems—including the need for a realistic, well funded plan and the importance of using data to measure progress.
Healthcare was also a key focus of my remarks to the nation’s governors and cabinet ministers at the National Economic Council, where I emphasized the opportunity to improve efforts to stop vaccine-derived polio outbreaks in Nigeria.
Much of my time in Nigeria was focused on something that’s a priority for both the government and the Gates Foundation: malnutrition. About 40 percent of the people in Sub-Saharan Africa are undernourished, which translates into millions of kids who don’t get to fully develop physically or mentally. But there are a lot of innovations that can make a difference, and Nigeria is helping lead the way.
I joined an event called Nutrivision, which brought together 200 students working on some of those innovations. Ndidi Okonkwo Nwuneli, the Global CEO of ONE, moderated a great Q&A—it’s always fun to hear what young people are thinking about and working on.
At Nutrivision, I had a blast meeting Tolani Tayo-Osikoya, better known as the Nigerian influencer and blogger Chef T. With more than 1 million followers, Chef T is spreading the word about good nutrition (along with great cooking tips). I admire the way she thinks about food security and the need to invest in innovative solutions so children across the country can have a healthy start in life.
Finally, I loved having Jon Batiste along for this trip. Jon is not only a brilliant musician, he’s also a great advocate for fighting hunger and malnutrition around the world and wanted to join so he could learn more about the work. Getting to know him made me even more enthusiastic about the foundation’s Goalkeepers meeting later this month, where Jon will be performing. See you in New York, Jon!
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