VITAMIN & MINERAL DEFICIENCY A devastating force threatens the lives of billions

Vitamin and Mineral Deficiency prevents more than two billion people from achieving their full intellectual and physical potential It imposes a heavy toll on national economies and on health care systems It condemns billions of people to lives lived in poverty

A bigger problem, a greater challenge Threat larger than ever imagined What we’ve learned is ‘the tip of the iceberg’ Even moderate and invisible levels of deficiency is devastating

A Global Summary Iodine deficiency lowers the intellectual capacity of nations by as much as percentage points Iron deficiency impairs the mental development of 40-60% of the developing world’s children Vitamin A deficiency impairs the immune systems of 40% of the developing world’s children

A Global Summary Every Year: Iodine deficiency causes 18 million babies to be born with mental impairment Iron deficiency causes the unnecessary deaths of 60,000 women Folate deficiency causes approximately 200,000 preventable birth defects Nations unnecessarily lose more than 2% of their gross national products

In “COUNTRY NAME”: Here insert specific damage statements and protection summaries from the DAR and other sources that are specific to your country and region

The cost of the deficiency is huge The cost of the solution is miniscule Billions of dollars are lost every year in lost productivity, medical care and care for disabled individuals Fortifying wheat flour in the 75 most needy countries would cost 4 cents per person. The return on this investment alone would be close to half a billion dollars

VM Deficiency and the UN Development Goals Controlling Vitamin and Mineral Deficiency lies at the heart of development. It directly feeds into the Millennium Development Goals: –Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger –Reduce child mortality –Improve maternal health –Develop a global partnership for development

VM Deficiency and the UN Development Goals Controlling Vitamin and Mineral Deficiency lies at the heart of development. It directly feeds into the Millennium Development Goals: –Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger By controlling vitamin and mineral deficiency, nations around the world will have the potential to increase Gross Domestic products by 2 to 3% The link between anemia and iodine deficiency and productivity is very well established

VM Deficiency and the UN Development Goals Controlling Vitamin and Mineral Deficiency lies at the heart of development. It directly feeds into the Millennium Development Goals: –Reduce child mortality By ending vitamin A deficiency, more than one million child deaths can be averted every year Vitamin A deficiency is known to be a significant contributing factor to child mortality Vitamin A deficiency compromises the immune systems of approximately 40% of the developing world’s children

VM Deficiency and the UN Development Goals Controlling Vitamin and Mineral Deficiency lies at the heart of development. It directly feeds into the Millennium Development Goals: –Improve maternal health By controlling anemia in women, 50,000 maternal deaths can be averted every year Severe anemia in pregnancy is known to contribute to increasing maternal death rates and to compromising the outcomes of pregnancy

VM Deficiency and the UN Development Goals Controlling Vitamin and Mineral Deficiency lies at the heart of development. It directly feeds into the Millennium Development Goals: –Develop a global partnership for development Ending vitamin and mineral deficiency lies at the heart of development. The best hope for sustained progress resides in the idea of national alliances to press for, plan, implement and monitor specific national solutions Such alliances are most effective when they represent the range of those who have experience, authority and means to put particular solutions into effect on a national scale

VM Deficiency and the UN Development Goals These goals will not be achieved, and the impact of VM Deficiency will not be significantly reduced, without a more ambitious, visionary, and systematic commitment to deploy known solutions on the same scale as the known problems.

VM Deficiency and the Copenhagen Consensus In the recent Copenhagen Consensus Project, a panel of distinguished economists were asked to select a set of top priorities for investment in areas representing the ten greatest global challenges in development –Investing in vitamin and mineral programming ranked second on their priority list –Only stopping the spread of HIV/AIDS was a higher priority

Solutions Vitamin and mineral deficiency represents a much greater problem than was imagined even a decade ago For once the world is confronted by a problem for which there are available and affordable solutions

Solutions Fortification Supplementation Education Disease control Combined, these methods have brought vitamin and mineral deficiency under control in developed countries. It is time now to deploy these solutions for the benefit of developing nations.

Solutions Fortification –Adding essential vitamins and minerals to foods that are regularly consumed by a significant proportion of the population (such as flour, salt, sugar, oil and margarine) –The cost can be as low as a few cents per person per year

Solutions Supplementation –Reaching out to vulnerable groups (particularly children and women of childbearing age) with vitamin and mineral supplements in the form of tablets, capsules and syrups –The cost can be as low as a few cents per person per year

Solutions Education and food based approaches –Informing communities about the kinds of foods that can increase the intake and absorption of vitamins and minerals

Solutions Disease control –Controlling diseases like malaria, measles, diarrhea, and parasitic infections can also help the body to absorb and retain essential vitamins and minerals

A decade of progress Prevalence of iodine deficiency halved –Close to 70% of the world’s households have access to iodized salt Severe vitamin A deficiency largely controlled –Close to 70% of the developing world’s children receive vitamin A supplements Fortification movement gaining momentum –40 countries now have food fortification programs Recognition of the VM Deficiency problem is growing

Current State of Progress in “INSERT COUNTRY NAME HERE” Here outline progress to date made in your country towards ending vitamin and mineral deficiency

A job less than half done Despite the achievements, few nations have moved decisively to end vitamin and mineral deficiency Action has often lacked the ambition and vision necessary to control vitamin and mineral deficiency across entire populations If the goals accepted by the international community are to be achieved, action against vitamin and mineral deficiency needs to move on to a new level

A job less than half done Despite the achievements of the past decade, one million children still die needlessly every year Reaching 60% or 70% of children is not good enough. Stopping here will result in VM Deficiency becoming a problem only for the poor and will make it significantly more difficult to commit more resources to end it

To end vitamin and mineral deficiency, governments, industry, UN agencies, non-governmental agencies and media need to shed the old thinking Integrated national-level policies need to be developed that reach out to whole populations to protect them against the consequences of vitamin and mineral deficiency

Use this section to outline specific actions that can be taken nationally towards ending vitamin and mineral deficiency in your country … Add a few country-specific slides if necessary. Use and customize the next slides to create a specific call for action by specific sectors in your country.

Everyone can join the effort Tools do exist to initiate policy dialogue Vitamin and Mineral Deficiency: A Global Progress Report Damage Assessment Reports for 80 developing nations A Challenge to the World’s Food companies A Guide to Media Professionals Other resources are available at:

How the tools can be used By national authorities to review existing activities to reach the agreed upon goals (UNGASS and MDGs) By national authorities including civil, civic and educational to review current understandings, and make adjustments to assure wide public and consumer understanding of the solution By the food industry, nationally, which can develop market and distribute low cost fortified food products and supplements By communication outlets in public, private media, cultural media, scientific and other journals. The effort here is not just to repeat what’s in the DAR documents, but to institute investigative reporting and analysis nationally

How the tools can be used By UN agencies in their annual reviews of development cooperation with governments By bilateral and multilateral aid agencies in their annual reviews of development cooperation with governments By national non-governmental organizations in their development cooperation within the country, and By international NGOs in their development cooperation plans

What Private food companies can do Food companies have played an historic role in controlling vitamin and mineral deficiencies in industrialized countries It is now a matter of urgency that the benefits of food fortification be extended to the developing nations Food companies can use and share their technical expertise with those in developing nations Food companies can apply their production, distribution and marketing skills to make fortified foods widely available and affordable in developing countries

How governments can help Governments can: –Help build public demand for fortified foods through health and education services –Assist with start-up financing and product development –Endorse approved food products –Allow distribution of certain fortified foods through schools, hospitals and clinics –Reduce duties on imported vitamins and minerals or on essential machinery used for fortification –Legislate in support of food fortification

Controlling vitamin and mineral deficiency is an affordable opportunity to improve the lives of two billion people and strengthen the pulse of economic development.