The eNutrition Academy: Supporting a New Generation of Nutritional Scientists around the World

Nutrition training and building capacity to provide a competent workforce to support national and regional efforts to combat malnutrition remain a major challenge in Africa and other developing regions of the world. The capacity to provide the necessary intellectual drive for nutrition research, policy, and practice in countries lacking in readiness for nutrition actions is imperative to improve the health of their people. To help address this need, the eNutrition Academy (eNA) was formed as a global partnership organization by the African Nutrition Society, the Federation of African Nutrition Societies, the Nutrition Society of the United Kingdom and Ireland, the ASN, and the International Union of Nutritional Sciences, supported by Cambridge University Press. The primary objective of this partnership is to provide an online learning platform that is free to access, enabling users to benefit from a wide range of learning materials from basic tools to more-advanced learning materials for teachers and researchers in developing countries. The goal of this article was to summarize the findings of a symposium held at the ASN Scientific Sessions and Annual Meeting at Experimental Biology 2015, which explored the themes of international capacity development, with a particular focus on the African continent, online learning, and the eNA e-learning platform. Given the vast human capacity present in Africa that is poised to create new solutions to address the public health needs of the continent, now is an opportune time to establish South-North and South-South partnerships to develop the next generation of African nutritional scientists.