Millenniumakkoorden - agreements - smarter futures improving the quality of wheat and maize flour in africa

Projectomschrijving

"Smarter Futures" will provide technical support and training for flour millers as well as government food control staff as both groups are key advocates in fortifying flour with vitamins and minerals.
Deficiencies of minerals and vitamins such as iron and folic acid impair intellectual development, compromise immune systems, provoke birth defects, and consign millions of people in Sub-Saharan Africa to lives lived below their physical and mental potential. Vitamin and mineral deficiencies also cause economic losses of up to 2% of a country's GDP.
Flour fortified with folic acid is virtually the only way of reaching women before they get pregnant to protect their child from birth defects. Large-scale fortification of maize and wheat flour and flour products such as bread is possible in several countries at a cost of only a 8-10 cents per person per year.
Countries must be assisted to develop scientifically sound and operationally feasible standards for flour fortification. Flour fortification will only succeed if the flour miller are brought on board as equal partners and are given the necessary technical support to produce and distribute good quality fortified flour.

Doel van dit akkoord

The purpose of "Smarter Futures" is to ensure that women in child bearing age, adolescents (especially adolescent girls) and young children in selected countries in Africa consume enough essential vitamins and minerals (in particular iron and folic acid) through providing appropriately fortified maize and wheat flour.
Iron protects brain development and intellectual potential, folic acid prevents birth defects while zinc and vitamin A provide better immunity

Subdoelstellingen

The ultimate beneficiaries of "Smarter Futures" are women of child-bearing age, adolescents and children in countries in Sub-Saharan Africa suffering from deficiencies of essential vitamins and minerals. They will the groups most likely to consume adequately fortified wheat and maize flour produced by African millers.
This project has three objectives toward accomplishing that mission:
1. Enable the production and distribution of fortified wheat and maize flour based on internationally accepted sources of highly bioavailable iron and folic acid.
2. Enable regulatory bodies to enact science-based national standards and establish quality control mechanisms.
3. Develop a public-private-civic partnership that advocates for mandatory flour fortification as the global norm.

Overige informatie

Building on momentum from the First African Flour Fortification Initiative Workshop in November of 2008, FFI brought 24 representativesfrom partner organizations, including development agencies, non-governmental organizations and millers, together in Dakar, Senegal, to reach agreement on focus areas for collaborative action to move the flour fortification agenda forward in Africa over the next 12 months. Project "SMARTER FUTURES" was introduced and decision were reached on cooperation on the ground. SEE ALSO http://www.sph.emory.edu/wheatflour/index.php for the full rep[ort of this important partner meeting.