New policy to make food fortification mandatory for improved nutrition

Windhoek – The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is working with Namibia in developing a new Nutrition Policy and Implementation Plan that makes it mandatory to fortify foods with essential nutrients. The new policy will replace the current one that was crafted two decades ago.

During the second International Conference on Nutrition (ICN-2) in November 2014, the delegation from Namibia consulted with FAO on the need to undertake the development of a new policy while developing priority intervention programmes to address malnutrition in the country.  According to the 2013 demographic and health survey (DHS) report for Namibia, 24 percent of children are stunted, 6 percent are wasted and 13 percent are underweight.

Major cereal industries are already undertaking voluntary fortification of maize meal and wheat flour and the government intends to come up with a mandatory food fortification policy to ensure that fortified staples reach all Namibians.

The Former Prime Minister of Namibia, Honourable Nahas Angula, who is the Chairman of the Namibian Alliance for Improved Nutrition and a member of the Scaling Up Nutrition Global Lead Group, noted that almost all Namibians consume mahangu flour (millet flour consumed widely across the country). Honourable Angula said the mandatory fortification of mahangu flour, maize meal and other food commodities such as cooking oil will go a long way towards improving nutritional well being.  Andrew Ndishishi, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Health and Social Services said Namibia had succeeded with salt iodization and will succeed in fortifying mahangu and other food varieties.  .

The FAO Representative to Namibia, Ahmadu Babagana, re-affirmed FAO’s commitment to technically assist Namibia on effective multi-sectorial engagement for improving nutrition through a new nutrition policy and implementation plan as one of the key follow- up actions of ICN-2.

The ICN-2 follow-up focuses on effective and truly representative institutionalized multi-sectoral platform for engaging nutrition policies and plans   with high-level political support for accountability by all stakeholders. The current Implementation Plan aims to reduce the percentage of stunted children under five from 29 to 20 percent, reach all pregnant women and children under five with effective nutrition interventions, and save the lives of 26 000 children under five by reducing stunting, increasing exclusive breastfeeding to 50 percent and increasing treatment of severe acute malnutrition by 2015.  

For more information contact:

Helena Kasheeta

FAO Representation in Namibia

Tel: +264 61 224094

Email: [email protected]