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:

1. 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;
2. 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;
3. 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;
4. 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;
5. To develop platforms at the sub-regional level to support sweetpotato research and development activities and to build a sustainable community of practice.

SASHA works in in 12 Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) countries: