The rate of poverty reduction in Africa has only been modest, despite the efforts of several projects launched by numerous international organisations, civil society organisations, and national governments. The situation is believed to revolve around the fact that poverty in Africa is predominantly rural. Funding for agricultural development is declining, yet over 70% of the continent’s poor inhabitants reside in remote rural areas and depend on agriculture for their food and means of subsistence.  More than 218 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa are living in extreme poverty. Among them are rural poor people in several isolated, outside the reach of social safety nets and poverty initiatives. Government schemes and funding for poverty reduction increasingly favour urban over rural communities.

According to the World Food Programme (2016), some 795 million people in the world do not have enough food to lead a healthy active life. That’s about one in nine people on earth. The vast majority of the world’s hungry people live in developing countries, where 12.9 percent of the population is undernourished. Sub-Saharan Africa is the region with the highest prevalence (percentage of population) of hunger. One person in four there is undernourished. Poor nutrition causes nearly half (45%) of deaths in children under five – 3.1 million children each year. One out of six children, roughly 100 million in developing countries is underweight. One in four of the world’s children are stunted. In developing countries the proportion can rise to one in three. 66 million primary school-age children attend classes hungry across the developing world, with 23 million in Africa alone.

It is against this background that AMSCOT has adopted a top-down and bottom-up approach to implement its world class initiatives that drive the reduction of poverty in the countries of assignment namely The Republic of Zimbabwe and The Republic of  Botswana. African Mission Scotland (AMSCOT)- trading as “The Helping Hands” formally became a Chapter in October 2015 in London. AMSCOT is funded by donations