Enabling Innovation
Stimulating the private sector to target infants and young children.
Infants and young children between 0-24 months of age are the most vulnerable to the effects of malnutrition. This is the age when the lack of adequate nutrition can have long-term, often irreversible, effects on physical and cognitive growth. For vulnerable groups in developing countries, it is the time when appropriate feeding - exclusive breastfeeding and the introduction after six months in life of healthy complementary foods in addition to breastmilk can make a big difference to the body’s growth surge.
GAIN works to improve feeding practices of infants and young children. Our efforts are based on the WHO/UNICEF global strategy for infant and young child nutrition and the WHO guiding principles for infant and young child feeding: We support the formation of international and national platforms for increased coordination and action, and to ensure that our work complements that of others. We promote exclusive breastfeeding for infants up to six months, and continued breastfeeding until 2 years of age and beyond. We aim to improve the quality of home-prepared complementary food, and encourage the private sector, in partnership with government and civil society, to produce affordable and easy to use fortified complementary foods and supplements.
Through grants and technical support, GAIN encourages the private sector and public-private partnerships to improve children’s nutrition by bringing to market affordable, high-quality fortified complementary foods and / or fortified complementary food supplements.
Companies or public private partnerships that apply for funding need to meet a strict set of criteria, including adherance to the International Code of Marketing of Breast-Milk Substitutes. We have issued a call for expressions of interest at the end of 2007, and these expressions are now being reviewed by an independent review panel. They shall submit their recommendations to GAIN by the end of May 2008, after which the selected applicants will be invited to submit a full proposal.
