*EPF415 05/09/2002
Corporations, Governments Work to Correct Vitamin, Mineral Deficiencies
(New alliance to fight malnutrition in developing countries) (880)

By Judy Aita
Washington File United Nations Correspondent

United Nations -- Governments and corporate leaders at the General Assembly Special Session on Children announced May 9 the formation of the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) to help eliminate vitamin and mineral deficiencies that threaten the health and lives of more than 2,000 million people in developing countries.

GAIN is a coalition of businesses, governments, and aid organizations that will work with local suppliers to enhance basic foodstuffs with micronutrients such as iron, iodine, folic acid and vitamin A by providing the technology, skills and resources needed to do so in developing countries. Initial major donors include the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Procter and Gamble, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the Canadian Government, and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).

"Giving children the best start in life (through) good nutrition both before and after birth is essential to help children's bodies and brains develop properly. That is why we think this event is an important one," said UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy launching GAIN at a press conference.

Adding vitamins and minerals to staple foods like flour and milk has been a common practice in the industrialized world for decades, but fortifying food has not been widely practiced elsewhere and micronutrient deficiency is still common in developing countries, Bellamy said.

The lack of iodine, for example, is the largest cause of mental retardation in the developing world, but it takes only a small amount of iodine in a child's diet to make an enormous difference in learning capacity, she said. "At this special session we are able to celebrate the fact that in 1990 only about 12 percent of the salt consumed in the developing world was iodized. Today it's over 70 percent."

With the GAIN initiative, Bellamy said, "Now we have an opportunity again to make another one of these leaps forward."

USAID has pledged $8 million to GAIN to help promote fortified foods, develop safe and acceptable food products and train food companies in fortification technology. USAID will contribute $70 million to GAIN over the next five years, officials said.

"GAIN is an excellent example of the public and private sectors working together for global change," said USAID Administrator Andrew Natsios.

Bill Gates, the head of Microsoft and founder of the philanthropic Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, said the initiative is "both extremely important on its own and also an example of the kind of private/public partnership that can bring together the skills and resources to address crying needs for the world's children."

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is giving $50 million to the alliance.

"Once you actually get the systems in place to get these micronutrients into the basic food chain, the cost of sustaining that is extremely low and the benefits to the children are quite phenomenal," Gates said. "We have seen great success with iodized salt and that helps children achieve their educational potential. But in areas like iron, vitamin A, folic acid we're falling short for literally billions (thousands of millions) of children."

Vitamin A has reduced measles mortality by more than 30 percent, which means that that single nutrient is saving hundreds of thousands of lives, he pointed out. "Micronutrients and vaccinations are so clear-cut that it is a shame that the world hasn't put the resources behind them. Now, we think, this is a great time to get those things addressed."

Adding micronutrients to rice, maize, milk, sugar or other staples will vary from country to country as GAIN brings together programs, donors and governments.

John Pepper, chairman of Procter & Gamble (P&G), a food products company, said, "We have the technologies that we know can bring iron, iodine and vitamin A and (other nutrients) at extremely low cost into a variety of foods which people have every day, including products that we make."

P&G has already conducted 20 years research and testing in this area, Pepper said. "We know how much work lies ahead of us, too. But we approach it with a great sense of responsibility and opportunity," he said. P&G will start its efforts in the GAIN program with a combination of iron, iodine, vitamin, folic acid and zinc it has developed.

P&G will be making its own brands of some products as inexpensive as possible for sale in developing countries. The profits will go into research to find how the same technology can be applied to other foodstuffs that are part of the diets in different countries, he said.

Zambian President Levy Patrick Mwanawasa, also participating in the May 9 press conference, noted that Zambia has been fortifying sugar with the help of USAID and other development agencies.

"Iron, iodine, and vitamin A deficiency are the most prevalent form of malnutrition in Africa," the president said.

Zambia has now managed to increase the vitamin A supplements for 89 percent of children under five years old and continues to fortify sugar that reaches two-thirds of Zambian households, Mwanawasa said.

Well-designed food fortification programs not only dramatically improve health, they reduce escalating costs in national healthcare and boost intellectual potential and domestic productivity, USAID officials said.

(The Washington File is a product of the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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