On 17 – 18 September 2025, CABRI was in Accra, Ghana, for the Building Public Finance Capabilities for Nutrition (BPFCN) Programme. Participating country-teams from Ghana, Liberia, and The Gambia gathered to share their progress, review the work of their peers, and determine actions that could lead to faster progress over the next few months.

Using the problem-driven iterative adaptation (PDIA) approach, which is at the core of our BPFC programme, the teams aimed to tackle complex problems at the intersection of nutrition and public finance.

The BPFCN Programme stands in contrast with traditional approaches to Public Financial Management (PFM) reform. It brings together multiple sectors, including finance ministries, to tackle cross-sectoral nutrition problems. As such, officials are from various ministries such as the ministries of finance; ministries of health; ministries of gender, children and social protection; ministries of agriculture, food security and nutrition; and the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement Secretariat. 

Since the programme started in January of this year, the country-teams focused on the following problem statements:

• Ghana: Pupils lack sufficient nutritional meals at schools depriving the most vulnerable children from developing cognitively and physically due to inadequate government funding.

• Liberia: There is limited domestic financing for nutrition-specific interventions hindering the fight against malnutrition.

• The Gambia: Inadequate and irregular coverage and funding of the school feeding programme negatively impacts the nutritional status of school children,

The BPFCN programme is funded by the EU/BMZ and implemented by GIZ.