Building National Platforms

WFP reports that one in seven people worldwide do not receive enough food. According to The Lancet, malnutrition accounts for 11 percent of the global burden of disease. The consequences of malnutrition are especially severe during pregnancy and childhood. Micronutrient deficiencies can lead to health problems, including irreversible mental and physical impairment, weakened immune systems, blindness and anemia.

GAIN’s nutrition programs have been developed to improve nutrition among 1.5 billion people, through population-based and targeted programs. These programs either fortify food during manufacture or provide nutritional supplements that can complement existing diets. GAIN’s core programs develop successful and sustainable national platforms (alliances of all stakeholders) for scaling up nutrition.

Platforms that bring stakeholders from different sectors together can be game changers by creating structural changes in the way problems are addressed: by bringing business and government together to deliver fortified food; by extending the agricultural value chain into nutrition; by covering the last mile to make universal salt iodization a reality; and by driving markets to deliver healthier nutrition to infants over six months. Alliances that bring together stakeholders from different sectors are equally important in driving changes to policy and legislation supportive of nutrition programming.

GAIN programs cover these key areas:-

• Agriculture and nutrition
• Large-scale food fortification
• Universal salt iodization
• Infant and young child nutrition
• Premix
• National level policy change and advocacy efforts
• Market-based solutions to improve nutrition

Building National Platforms. PDF