Egypt: Making Strides During the Pandemic

Despite challenges posed by the pandemic, Egypt pushed ahead to restart the country’s wheat flour fortification program, on hold since 2014.

Within the Egyptian government, the pandemic reinforced the importance of health, nutrition, and the establishment of robust systems that produce and distribute nutritious food, including fortified wheat flour. As a result of the government’s strong commitment, Egypt made significant progress in 2020 toward establishing a robust fortification program.

With FFI’s support, Egypt’s Ministry of Supply and Internal Trade (MOSIT) conducted an assessment to map opportunities and challenges and built a coalition of stakeholders to implement fortification. The coalition included MOSIT and the Minister of MOSIT, His Excellency Dr. Ali Moselhi; private and public sector grain millers; bread bakers; and in-country development partners like the World Food Programme and UNICEF.

In addition, FFI and partners in Egypt such as the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) accomplished the following key milestones:

completed a full mill assessment that itemized each mill’s needs, condition, status of micro-ingredient feeders, and readiness to fortify;
formed a high-level committee, which includes MOSIT, FFI, and the World Food Programme, to oversee development of the flour fortification program;
began production of an advocacy tool that documents the program’s progress to date and its significance to Egypt. This advocacy tool, which includes video interviews with key stakeholders, will help raise awareness among leaders and policy makers of the importance of flour fortification, especially in light of the COVID-19 pandemic;
secured the Egyptian National Food Safety Authority’s full commitment to support the program and engage with technical staff to ensure program compliance through the drafting and operationalizing of an Egypt-specific Monitoring Guideline for Fortification;
discussed engagement and support for the program with the private sector; and
garnered the full support of all key stakeholders in flour fortification as well as the donor agencies involved in the program.