By Iyemah David
West African countries have joined forces to fight against micronutrient deficiencies among children, infants and expectant mothers in the region under the aegis of “Fortification Alliance.”
Chairman of the National Fortification Alliance (NFA), Mr Fred Chiazor said this during a Workshop of the Regional Fortification Alliance on Tuesday in Abuja.
The workshop had in attendance representatives of the National Alliance for Food Fortification in ECOWAS countries.
Also, in attendance were technical and financial partners like the United States Agency for International Development, (USAID), and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Mr Chiazor said that it became imperative for the countries to form alliances to ensure that foods processed, produced and consumed were fortified with the necessary nutrients.
According to him, about 15 countries are making effort to form a regional fortification Alliance.
“The first meeting was held in Cotonou, Benin Republic, to consider the idea of forming a regional alliance.
“We are now coming together to discuss how we can form that alliance, and the whole essence is micronutrient deficiencies in these countries.
“It is to ensure that we can address these issues for children, infants and young infants and expectant mothers.
“We want to see how we can address such issues by collaborating, sharing experiences in different countries,” he said.
Chiazor said that certain “vehicles” would be used to achieve the aim of tackling macronutrient deficiencies.
“In Nigeria, we are using about four to five vehicles – wheat flour, sugar, vegetable oil, and salt.
“In the past, we had 20 per cent on vitamin premixes, which is transferred to the producers and producers transferred to the customers.
“The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) is magnanimous enough to reduce the tariff to five per cent for us.
“This is making it affordable, because, with salt reduction, it also allows industry producers to be able to use and afford them,” he said.
According to him, in Nigeria, tremendous progress has been recorded in the fight against micronutrient deficiencies, courtesy of the concerted efforts of all stakeholders involved in their fortification initiatives.
He said that mandatory fortification of selected food vehicles – wheat flour, maize flour, sugar, and vegetable oil started in 2002 to control micronutrient deficiencies in Nigeria.
He said that some of the achievements of NFA included a robust Regulatory Framework; Successful Advocacy for Tariff Reductions; and Data-Driven Approaches.
Also speaking, Mr Brent Wibberley, Project Director for the USAID Advancing Food Fortification Opportunities to Reinforce Diets (AFFORD) programme, commended efforts of food fortification in Nigeria.
Wibberley called for maintaining compliance levels with the standards for food fortification, especially as it concerns the smallest size businesses.
“I think the progress in food fortification in West Africa has been has been good. It has been a good example, especially, in Nigeria.
“But there are still challenges in maintaining compliance levels with the standards for food fortification, especially when it gets to the smallest size businesses”, he said.
Mr Kumar Saurabh, Regional Manager at the Programme for Appropriate Technology in Health (PATH), said that people are required to eat certain types of food group daily.
“This is the ideal situation, but how about the affordability? Do people have the money to eat those expensive foods and fruits and vegetables?
“So, to address these problems, we have come up with food fortification strategies, where the technical partner is linking those high burden of prevalence of micronutrient to address this hidden hunger,” Saurabh said.
