Future Fortified

Looking beyond food aid to tackle malnutrition in Sudan

The availability of food plays the most obvious role in preventing and treating malnutrition. But there are other many building blocks, Devex's Jenny Lei Ravelo learned during a recent trip to Diraige camp in Sudan's South Darfur.

5 ways Canada can impact global nutrition

With only a few months remaining to include more nutrition targets in the Sustainable Development Goals, here is how Canada can play a role in showing the world that malnutrition is inextricably linked with a broader range of global challenges.

Today's nutrition work calls for business, tech skills

Nutrition experts are calling for more business and tech skills to translate global health solutions into national budgets. Officials from UNICEF, the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition and political scientists explain why.

Cultivating nutrition: Fortified crops and good nutrition in the first 1,000 days

More than 800 million people worldwide are chronically hungry and more than twice as many people are estimated to be micronutrient-deficient, lacking the vitamins and minerals necessary to grow, learn and earn. Experts from The Chicago Council on Global Affairs make a case for biofortification.

GAIN — putting nutrition at the heart of #globaldev

How can three broad approaches help make nutrition a higher political priority among different governments and a central element in the post-2015 development agenda? Nutrition experts share their insights in this analysis for the #FutureFortified series.

Envisioning a world with fewer vitamin A deficiencies

Although the interventions to combat poor nutrition — including vitamin A deficiency — are well-known globally, they are not often enforced. But poverty is not the barrier to their implementation, but the lack of political will, writes S. Jamal Raza, director of Pakistan’s National Institute of Child Health, in this op-ed.

Better crops for better nutrition

Biofortified staples can help provide a significant amount of certain essential vitamins or minerals. But it’s also important to promote a diversity of nutritious foods that can provide other essential nutrients — and donors are responding to the challenge, writes HarvestPlus Director Howarth Bouis in this op-ed.

Fortification: Charting an endgame for malnutrition

Food fortification has historically been an important tool in the fight against malnutrition. To make the practice widespread, civil society needs to get involved through continued advocacy, education and monitoring across sectors, argues Kathy Spahn of Helen Keller International.

A mother's daunting task

For many women around the globe, nutrition is a matter that goes beyond food. Cat Cora, the first female Iron Chef, shares her experience from a learning tour to Mozambique in this exclusive commentary.

Innovative, large-scale solutions needed to address malnutrition

To reach populations most at risk of malnutrition, the global development community needs to “activate” innovative channels that can deliver support at a large scale. But for these interventions to work, multiple stakeholders need to be involved.

The buzz from the #FutureFortified Global Summit in Tanzania

Understanding hunger

Malnutrition isn't what it used to be, and nutrition experts are pushing more than ever to improve and increase the potential of food fortification. Devex takes a closer look.

How to ensure a #FutureFortified

Jay Naidoo: Private sector, government and women key to nutrition partnerships

Food fortification has impacted the health of some 1 billion people. Devex sat down with Jay Naidoo, chair of global partnerships at the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition, to find out more about the role of partnerships in this continued effort.

Promoting the invisible intervention

Why #FutureFortified

Micronutrient deficiencies can cause irreversible damage to a child's physical and mental development. #FutureFortified is a new global effort to end hidden hunger through the scale up of a cost-effective, proven intervention, GAIN Executive Director Marc Van Ameringen writes in this commentary.

What a trusted local brand means for nutrition

Food fortification: An idea whose time has come to go to scale

Strong government regulations. Partnerships with private sector. Innovation. Chris Elias, president of the global development program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, shares what needs to happen next on food fortification.

How to raise the world's IQ, taken with a grain of salt

Other health challenges like polio eradication and malaria treatment get a lot of attention, but iodine deficiency, one of the biggest global health challenges, is often left out of the conversation. If eliminated it would be hailed among the greatest public health achievements in history, so what's the hold up?

Fortifying a sustainable future

In order to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, ending hunger is only part of the answer, writes Chris Elias, president of the global development program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. How can food fortification be a powerful tool in the fight against hidden hunger?

Solving malnutrition: Public money for public problems

While it is important to get the private sector on board, public money must be spent to solve a public problem like malnutrition, Bjørn Lomborg, director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center, explains in this #FutureFortified interview.

3 months in, Michelle Nunn talks new role as CARE CEO

Michelle Nunn took the reins as CEO and president of CARE in July. Now, she's tasked with getting to know an organization with a presence in over 90 countries. Devex caught up with Nunn in New York — and confirmed she might be hard to get a hold of in the coming year.

Why local diets make the difference in food fortification

The Devex team takes an inside look at how organizations like GAIN are putting the “bread” in global nutrition’s bread and butter.

Equity, cost and a comprehensive approach to nutrition and fortification

Food fortification has gathered steam in recent years, but gaps remain in the effort to combat malnutrition. Meanwhile a number of new challenges are emerging, Francesco Branca, director for health and development at the World Health Organization, tells Devex in this video interview.

The good and the bad: Urbanization's effect on food supply chains

The scale of urbanization in China alone is without precedent, with the urban share of the population expected to reach 60 percent by 2030. It's an attractive situation for ingredient suppliers, Feike Sijbesma, CEO of DSM, told Devex, but it also creates pressure and stymies standardization for food producers.

The case for food fortification

When delivered through smart investments, food fortification can be a powerful tool in the fight against diseases caused by micronutrient deficiencies and developmental stunting, writes Greg Garrett, director of large-scale food fortification at GAIN.