My name is Aristide Carlos Houdegbe, a Republic of Benin citizen and currently PhD student under MoBreed Program at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa. I applied to the MoBreed Program call for PhD scholarship in 2017 and I was luckily selected. My investigations focus on Spider plant (Gynandropsis gynandra (L.) Briq.), a traditional African leafy vegetable with a high nutritional and medicinal potential, which thrives in tropical and sub-tropical areas of the world. Spider plant is used as food and medicine and its leaves are rich in vitamins, minerals and other health-promoting secondary metabolites. The species provides substantial incomes for local communities and there is an increasing interest for its cultivation in urban areas especially in Africa for fighting hidden hunger. In addition, the species is closed to Arabidopsis thaliana with C4 photosynthesis making it a potential model plant for scientists. As far as I am concerned,The MoBreed scholarship enables me to understand the genetic basis of yield in the species and to develop improved populations. So far, I am able to select genotypes with high yield and develop improved populations for farmers and breeding program. The improved populations have an increased yield of up to 50%. At the end of this research, my results will help farmers to have access to improved cultivars to overcome the low productivity, and therefore improve their incomes and increase the vegetable availability for consumers. The newly developed cultivars have also enhanced nutritional content, that will help fight malnutrition and hidden hunger in Africa and Asia.