Sweetpotato Action for Security and Health in Africa (SASHA)

The potential of sweetpotato has remained largely untapped in Sub-Saharan Africa, particularly compared to grains and cash crops, and even compared to other root crops, such as cassava. Increased investment could significantly boost yields, increase market potential, and reverse sweetpotato’s image as a poor person’s food.
The overall objective of the SASHA Project is to develop the essential capacities, products, and methods to reposition sweetpotato in food economies to alleviate poverty and undernutrition in Africa. The specific objectives of the SASHA Project are:
- To establish efficient population improvement programs at sub-regional level in SSA linked with participatory varietal development at the national level to enable short and long-term production of new locally adapted varieties that significantly improve farmer incomes and deliver nutritional benefits to consumers;
- To develop safe weevil-resistant sweetpotato varieties for SSA using local capacities and a combination of biotechnology and breeding that significantly improves food security in Uganda and Kenya;
- To establish demand-led cost-effective seed systems for the dissemination of new varieties and high quality planting material, for both nutrition and market led initiatives and to understand the factors that influence the development of commercially viable seed systems linked to markets;
- To provide convincing evidence that novel delivery systems can cost-effectively benefit the poor, especially women and children, through (1) combating Vitamin A and other nutritional deficiencies in the use of sweetpotato in food-based approaches and (2) responding to a growing urban food market and expanding market opportunities for sweetpotato;
- To develop platforms at the sub-regional level to support sweetpotato research and development activities and to build a sustainable community of practice.
Jan Low
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Wolfgang Gruneberg
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Maria Andrade
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Robert Mwanga
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Ted Carey
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Marc Ghislain
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Margaret McEwan
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Tawanda Muzhingi
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Julius Okello
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Jan Krueze
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Luka Wanjohi
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Bernice Jane Wairimu
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Faith Njung’e
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Emily Ndoho
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Debbie Rees (NRI)
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Key Project Information
The Sweetpotato Action for Security and Health in Africa (SASHA) is a 5-year initiative designed to improve the food security and livelihoods of poor families in Sub-Saharan Africa by exploiting the untapped potential of sweetpotato. It will develop the essential capacities, products, and methods to reposition sweetpotato in food economies of Sub-Saharan African countries to alleviate poverty and undernutrition, particularly among poor women and children.SASHA is a project of the International Potato Center (CIP). As part of the broader, 10-year, multi-donor Sweetpotato for Profit and Health Initiative, the SASHA project is expected to set the groundwork for improving the lives of 10 million Sub-Saharan households in 10 years.
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Sweetpotato breeding progress in Burkina FasoThe objectives in this presentation are to develop high yielding, early maturing and drought tolerant sweetpotato with potential to address malnutrition
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MAMA SASHA BASELINE REPORT 2011The Mama SASHA baseline survey is a key part of a project evaluation strategy aimed at assessing the impact of orange-fleshed sweetpotato (OFSP) on the health and nutritional status of women and ch...
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SASHA Reports - Executive SummariesAnnual Progress Report, 2017 - This has been an incredible year of recognition and celebration of the progress made in biofortification, and for vitamin A-rich orange-fleshed sweetpotato (OFSP) in ...Read More »
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SASHA Annual ReportsSASHA Year 1 Annual ReportSASHA Year 1 Supplementary AppendicesSASHA YEAR 2 Annual Report Main Technical ReportSASHA Year 2 Supplementary AppendicesSASHA YEAR 2 Midterm ReportSASHA Year 3 Annual Re...Read More »
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SASHA BriefsSASHA is a initiative designed to improve the food security and livelihoods of poor families in Sub-Saharan Africa by exploiting the untapped potential of sweetpotato. The initiative has developed ...Read More »
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Video: Marian Quain - Crops Research InstituteMarian Quain from the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research – The Crops Research Institute and the Principal Investigator for the SASHA pre-basic seed program explains why production of pr...Read More »
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Video: David Talengera - Biocrops, UgandaDavid Talengera from Biocrops, Uganda, explains why they are producing pre-basic Sweetpotato seed and how the institution tries to make this production a sustainable business. He talks about the en...Read More »
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OFSP PASSPORT 2017Check out your Orange-fleshed Sweetpotato (OFSP) Passport to Good Health. This passport-sized document contains all the facts and figures you need to know about orange-fleshed sweetpotato from its ...
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CRS Tanzania1 - SASHA Marando Bora Sustaining family livelihoods in Musoma Rural District - A case study of SASHA projects to improving rural livelihood by providing farmers with quality seed of improved sweet...Read More »
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Bronchures and PostersBronchure 1 - Sweetpotato Action for Security and Health in Africa (Portuguese): Sweetpotato Action for Security and Health in Africa (SASHA) is an initiative designed to improve the food security ...Read More »
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CloneSelector: A new tool for Accelerated Analysis of Sweetpotato Breeding TrialsCloneSelector is an Excel based tool developed to help plant breeders, working with clonally propagated crops, carry out field trials, analyze the results and make accurate selection decisions. In ...
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CRS Tanzania - SASHA Marando Bora! Sustaining family livelihoods in Musoma Rural DistrictThis article is a case study of SASHA projects to improving rural livelihood by providing farmers with quality seed of improved sweetpotato varieties in timely fashion.
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CRS Tanzania - SASHA Marando BoraThis article is a case study of SASHA projects to improving rural livelihood by providing farmers with quality seed of improved sweetpotato varieties in timely fashion.
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SASHA Brief 2011: Weevil resistant sweetpotato through biotechnologyWeevils can destroy 60%-100% of sweetpotato (SP) crops during periods of pronounced drought. As SP is at times the only food available, this can be quite devastating. The impact of weevils can affe...
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BROCHURE: Sweetpotato Action for Security and Health in Africa (SASHA)Sweetpotato Action for Security and Health in Africa (SASHA) is an initiative designed to improve the food security and livelihoods of poor families in Sub-Saharan Africa by exploiting the untapped...
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SASHA Brief 2 - 2010: Building the Evidence Base for Sweetpotato Marketing in Nigeria
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SASHA Brief 2012: Improving women's access to quality sweetpotato vines
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The Mama SASHA project in western KenyaMama SASHA (Sweetpotato Action for Security and Health in Africa) is a 5-year project (2010-2014) that seeks to explicitly integrate agriculture and nutrition interventions into antenatal health ca...Read More »
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SASHA Brief 2015: Breeding in Africa for AfricaTraditionally, sweetpotato breeding programs have taken a long time, 7 to 8 years, to produce a new variety. Moreover, as of 2008, most countries in Africa had no real breeding program and relied o...
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SASHA Brief 10 - 2010: Breeding in Africa for AfricaTraditionally, sweetpotato breeding programs have taken a long time, 7 to 8 years, to produce a new variety. Frequently those new varieties do not suit the various geographic areas and the preferen...
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Net tunnels to protect sweetpotato planting material from disease a guide to construct and maintain tunnelsThere is high demand for clean planting materials (sweetpotato vines). Given the need for community-level vine multipliers to have better and more affordable access to quality, disease-free (“clean...
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