Malnutrition remains the world's most serious health problem and represents a complex development challenge which undermines progress towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals. Nearly a sixth of the world's population suffers from chronic hunger, while in the developing world malnutrition is the single largest contributory factor to child mortality.
Crown Agents works with governments, donors and other partners to implement country-specific solutions aimed at addressing food insecurity and malnutrition.
Our contribution to reducing malnutrition and improving food security includes:
Food & Nutritional Supply Chain Management
We deliver transparent and efficient solutions that cover the entirefood and nutritional supply chain including procurement, inspection and delivery as well as supplier performance management.
Crown Agents has worked in Zimbabwe since 2003 to design and deliver a number of food relief programmes to supply food aid 
and food vouchers. We also act as procurement agent for the GAIN Premix Facility which is providing a secure supply chain for vitamin and mineral micronutrients to fortify foodstuffs in target countries. In the first three months of operations alone, this facility touched 30 million lives with certified quality premix at an affordable cost.
Trade Facilitation
We improve overall food accessibility by simplifying tariff structures, reducing clearance times and streamlining cross-border and transportation corridor trade flows.
Crown Agents is running and modernising customs procedures in Angola by simplifying import and export procedures and directly 
supporting trade logistics and compliance procedures that facilitate all food commodity deliveries. We also support the USAID funded Support for Food Security Activities IQC that is working towards reducing hunger and improving nutrition in eastern and southern Africa by accelerating agriculture-sector growth, increasing access to markets and increasing incomes. Our role will include trade facilitation and supply chain security.
Agricultural Development
We focus on providing agricultural inputs to local suppliers and households to reduce vulnerability and ensure food security. Through funding from the Japanese government, Crown Agents has supported small and medium-sized enterprises in 34 countries to improve food production through the procurement of feed, 
fertilizers, commodities for arable and livestock farming and food transformation equipment. We are also working on a DFID and EU- funded protracted relief programme in Zimbabwe to provide agricultural inputs to support household nutritional gardens that stabilize food security and protect the livelihoods of 1.5 million people.
Emergency and Humanitarian Response
We work in complex and challenging environments to ensure a rapid response to increase the impact of humanitarian food aid. Under an exclusive contract with DFID's Conflict, Humanitarian and Security Department (CHASE), Crown Agents provides emergency and humanitarian support services including offsetting up systems for the rapid procurement and airlift of emergency humanitarian relief items including food supplies. In Bangladesh, following Cyclone AILA in 2009, Crown Agents inspected emergency relief goods and food for the Bangladesh Delegation of International Federation of Red Crescent Society to support vulnerable people impacted by the disaster.