There are four major strategies to reduce malnutrition, including the most prevalent and damaging vitamin and mineral deficiencies:
These different strategies are well known, and are relatively easy to implement. Many countries have adopted public health policies and programs that are intended to integrate these different approaches: the relative importance of each strategy depending on upon local conditions and the specific mix of local needs.
But the dilemma facing the health sector in many countries is that they are lacking the resources to reach the populations who are most in need. Programs to improve diets are frequently too expensive, and reaching those who live in rural areas or in urban ‘slums’ with supplements on a regular basis is beyond the health systems capacity, both financially and organizationally.
Also, modifying diets involves behaviour change – something which is often resisted. Food fortification has a dual advantage: it can deliver nutrients to large segments of the population without requiring changes in food-consumption patterns and without having to rely on overburdened health systems.
However, these strategies should be seen as complementary. An effective program of supplementation can often provide the fastest improvements in the micronutrient status of a targeted at-risk population. Increasing dietary diversity is the most desirable and sustainable although it takes longer to implement.
Food fortification tends to have a fairly rapid effect over a larger population and can be sustained over time.
Food fortification has been an effective nutrition intervention used for over 80 years in industrialised countries, improving the diets of hundreds of millions of people.
GAIN is extending the benefits of fortification, a proven technology, to poor populations in developing countries on a national scale.