Nigeria-born nutritionist gains global recognition for maternal, child health work

From the sunlit classrooms of Imo State University to the bustling corridors of health ministries and the meeting rooms of global agencies, Moses Ekwueme has built a career grounded in one core scientific theory: that good nutrition in the first 1,000 days of life can change everything.

Before 2023, his work had already spanned continents, managed millions in funding, and improved the lives of over 200,000 women and children. This is his journey.

The midday sun in Owerri had a way of settling into the walls, turning lecture halls into slow ovens. Students shifted in their seats, fanning themselves with notebooks, letting the lecturer’s words drift past. But somewhere in the middle row of the class at Imo State University, one young man leaned forward, pen poised, eyes fixed on the speaker.

It was a lecture on maternal nutrition. The talk was clinical, filled with numbers and recommendations. But for Moses Ekwueme, it was personal. “I remember thinking, if food is life, then nutrition is the science of life,” he said, his voice calm yet deliberate.

“I wanted to be part of the solution for mothers and children who never get the right start.”

That decision to dedicate his life to nutrition would take him far beyond that warm lecture hall. It would lead him into rural clinics where mothers cradled malnourished infants. It would place him at the centre of multimillion-dollar nutrition programmes in Nigeria’s most vulnerable states. And it would earn him collaborations with global agencies shaping health policy across continents.

By the end of 2022, before the next phase of his career began, Ekwueme had managed millions in programme funding, trained hundreds of frontline health workers, and shaped interventions that reached more than 200,000 women and children. But his path began much earlier, in communities where malnutrition was a reality you could see.

Ekwueme was born in Northern Nigeria, in a place where the effects of poverty were not abstract. They were in the bowed legs of children walking to school. They were in the slow movements of pregnant women who laboured through their days with a quiet weariness.

He remembers most school mornings when he and some classmates arrived without breakfast. Others had eaten, but only bread or cassava soaked in water.

“There was this boy in my class, very bright,” Ekwueme recalled. “But he was always missing school because of illness. Back then, I did not know it was linked to nutrition. I just knew he was struggling.”

Food, when it came, was often heavy with starch and low in nutrients. Plates of yams or rice filled stomachs but left bodies deficient. “The meals were filling, yes,” Ekwueme said, “but they did not nourish.”

Those early impressions stayed with him. He saw that health was not just about avoiding disease, but about having the strength to learn, to work, to live fully. And in his mind, nutrition became the unseen thread running through every part of life.

When it was time to choose a university course, the expectation for high-performing students like Ekwueme was clear. Medicine, Law, Engineering – the “big three.” But he had other ideas.

He chose Nutrition and Dietetics at Imo State University. Friends were puzzled. “Some thought I was limiting myself,” he said, smiling. “But I saw it differently. Nutrition was calling me. I wanted my work to directly change people’s health outcomes.”

From his first year, he approached the subject with discipline. He linked classroom theories to the people he had grown up around.

When a lecturer discussed iron deficiency, Ekwueme thought of the pale-faced pregnant women he had seen in his community. When protein-energy malnutrition came up, he remembered the toddlers with reddish hair, a sign of kwashiorkor, who played quietly in dusty yards.

By 2016, his commitment was clear. He graduated as Best Student in the Department of Nutrition and Best Graduating Student in the Faculty of Health Sciences. The recognition, he believed, was less about trophies and more about proof. “It was a sign that hard work and purpose can take you anywhere.”

After graduation, Ekwueme did not retreat into an office. He stayed in academia but moved towards hands-on community work. From 2016 to 2018, as a Research Assistant in the Department of Nutrition, he worked on a maternal health project aimed at improving pregnancy outcomes through education and supplementation.

He visited antenatal clinics where mothers sat on wooden benches, some with toddlers in tow. He talked about balanced diets, about the importance of iron and folic acid, and about exclusive breastfeeding.

On market days, he joined outreach teams to speak with women selling vegetables and grains. “Some would laugh and say, ‘You’re telling us to eat vegetables? We sell them because we need the money.’ And that’s when you realise nutrition isn’t just about knowledge, it is about access and economics.”

The programme reached an average of 280 women monthly across five facilities. Within six months, participation grew by 46 per cent. Mothers reported feeling stronger, and some began sharing tips with neighbours. “Standing in front of a group of expectant mothers, explaining why iron is important, you realise you are not just sharing information,” Ekwueme said. “You are shaping futures.”

His first taste of international fieldwork came in the summer of 2019, when he joined the National Institute of Medical Research in Mwanza, Tanzania, as a Research Assistant. The role involved collecting and analysing data on the intersection of infectious diseases and nutritional status, an experience that revealed how interconnected public health challenges are across borders.

Ultimately, his research contributed to understanding the mechanism of blood glucose dysregulation among HIV-infected adults after one yeat of initiating antiretroviral therapy.

By 2021, Ekwueme was adding academic depth to his field expertise. That year, he began a PhD in Nutrition and Health Sciences at Emory University in Atlanta, United States. He was awarded the prestigious George W. Woodruff Fellowship, granted to only 15 of the 300 incoming PhD scholars across the University’s Laney Graduate School. His research focuses on maternal and child nutrition in resource-limited settings, strengthening his skills in epidemiology, implementation science, and policy evaluation.

“Academia and fieldwork are not separate worlds for me,” he said. “One informs the other.”

While at Emory, he also worked as a Research Assistant, contributing to multi-country maternal and child health studies. His responsibilities ranged from designing data collection tools to analysing large datasets and synthesising results into clear, actionable insights for policymakers.

At the same time, he was appointed Global Survey Associate at the Global Child Nutrition Foundation in Seattle, United States, where he still coordinates data collection for the Global Survey of School Meal Programmes—the only survey that collects data on every large-scale school feeding programme and complementary activities in over 160 countries.

The role meant engaging with ministries of education and health worldwide to ensure accurate, contextually rich data on how school feeding programmes operate. “School meals are about more than food,” he explained. “They keep children in school, improve learning, and strengthen local economies.”

Back in Nigeria, he served as a Survey Coordinator Consultant for the Health Financing, Equity and Investment Fund at the Federal Ministry of Health. In this role, he managed data collection efforts that informed $15 billion in total health expenditure, enabling decision-makers to allocate resources more effectively across the health sector, a position that demanded both technical precision and administrative tact.

In October 2019, Ekwueme took on a role that would test his leadership. As Programme Manager at the Wellbeing Foundation Africa, he led the execution of the UNFPA and Nutrition International-funded Nutrition Leveraged Integrated Facility Technology (NLIFT) initiative.

The project was backed by CA$1.7 million and aimed to deliver integrated nutrition education, iron-folic acid supplementation, and other nutrition services for women aged 15-49 across 30 primary healthcare facilities in the Federal Capital Territory.

When he visited some of these facilities for the first time, the gaps were obvious. Stock-outs of supplements were common. Health workers were dedicated but overstretched. Mothers came for antenatal visits but left without key nutrition counselling.

Ekwueme assembled the team of 94 local health workers and six midwives. They standardised procedures, ensured supplies were sufficient, and tracked coverage rates among beneficiaries. Compliance with national guidelines rose to 95 per cent. The project exceeded its coverage targets by 15 per cent, reaching more than 12,650 beneficiaries by August 2020.“This was not just about giving out supplements,” he explained. “It was about building a system that could serve women and children long after the project ended.”

In January 2021, Ekwueme joined the Solina Centre for International Development and Research as a Nutrition Specialist, where he coordinated a $232 million World Bank and Global Financing Facility nutrition project across 12 states with the highest burden of malnutrition in Nigeria. He led the program in Gombe State, one of the country’s most nutritionally challenged and insecurity-affected regions.

The statistics were sobering. Stunting rates were high, anaemia was widespread, and access to nutrition services in rural areas was limited. The project aimed for 100 per cent coverage of the Basic Package of Nutrition Services, from maternal and infant feeding counselling and iron-folic acid supplementation of pregnant women to vitamin A supplementation and micronutrient powder distribution for at-risk children.

In the early weeks, Ekwueme travelled to all 11 local government areas, meeting traditional leaders and visiting health posts. He heard stories of mothers walking several kilometres for supplements, only to find they were out of stock. “You cannot ask people to trust the system if the system does not deliver,” he said.

Working with the Ministry of Health, he developed Standard Operating Procedures and a Theory of Change to ensure quality and sustainability. He trained and supervised health workers, making sure they had both the knowledge and the confidence to deliver.

The early impact was visible. Moderate anaemia dropped. Severe malnutrition cases were identified earlier and treated more effectively. Trust in the health system began to grow. “We were not just aiming for numbers,” Ekwueme said, reflecting on the impact of the projects. “We wanted lasting change in systems, from supply chains to community engagement.”

Before 2023, Ekwueme’s work had already crossed borders. He collaborated with United Nations agencies, World Bank, Global Fund, and other international partners, applying his skills in behaviour change communication, programme evaluation, and implementation science across diverse country contexts.

These experiences broadened his perspective, and he has contributed tangibly to improving health outcomes by supporting critical interventions. Nonetheless, Nigeria remained his anchor. “If we can solve nutrition challenges here, we can adapt those solutions anywhere,” he noted. “Nigeria is my testing ground and my inspiration.”

Asked about his guiding principle, Ekwueme explained that “The first 1,000 days, from conception to a child’s second birthday, is everything. If we get that right, we change the trajectory of a child’s life, a family’s future, and a nation’s economy.”

He spoke with conviction about how poor nutrition in this window can cause irreversible stunting, impaired brain development, and weakened immunity. But he also talked about hope and how targeted interventions like exclusive breastfeeding, micronutrient supplementation, and timely treatment of malnutrition can transform life chances.

“This is not theory,” he noted. “It is the foundation of my work. If you change the first 1,000 days, you change everything that comes after.”

By the start of 2023, Ekwueme had led two major, high-impact nutrition programmes in Nigeria, managed millions in international funding with transparency, and built systems that outlasted their initial budgets. He had trained hundreds of frontline workers, ensuring that their skills would keep saving lives.

For him, statistics are not cold data points. “A one per cent drop in stunting is not just a number,” he said. “It is a child who will learn better, a mother who will live longer, a family that will thrive.”

His journey before 2023 is proof that expertise, dedication, and a relentless focus on the first 1,000 days can change a nation’s trajectory. From the sunlit lecture halls of Imo State University to the shade of rural health posts, from policy discussions in Abuja to dusty village squares in Gombe, Ekwueme has carried one belief with him: that nutrition, done right, is the foundation for everything that follows.

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