Regional Capacity Building Workshop for Effective Flour Fortification – Training of Trainers

When

09-13 September 2019

Where

Location: Baku, Azerbaijan

Summary

Countries in Central Asia and the Caucasus Region continue to register relatively high levels of anemia, affecting over 30% of women of reproductive age and between 22 and 49% of children under age five. Overall prevalence of neural tube defects is estimated to be 9.9 per 10,000 live births.

Representatives from eight countries in these regions participated in a five-day workshop 9-13 September 2019 to develop expertise in promoting, planning, implementing, and monitoring wheat flour fortification as a strategy to address anemia and neural tube defects. Five of the eight countries have wheat flour fortification mandates (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan) but only Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan have achieved high coverage. The remaining three countries (Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Ukraine) are at different stages of developing national programs on food fortification.

Several times during the workshop countries with established programs were paired with those without established programs. This allowed experienced fortification stakeholders the opportunity to share knowledge and gain experience as fortification trainers. Levan Silagava, executive director of the millers’ association in Georgia, noted the benefit of this by saying the friendships created led to an agreement to advance fortification.

Participants discussed technical components of fortification–from design to impact evaluation–and visited an industrial flour mill where they saw a demonstration of the iron spot test for qualitive testing of fortified flour. They also met a doctor who treats children with spina bifida as well as a mother and child living with this birth defect.

At the end of the training, each country developed a flour fortification action plan for the next six to 12 months with commitments to advance effective flour fortification in their countries. Staff from UNICEF and the Food Fortification Initiative will support the countries in the future to successfully complete their action plans. The region plans to develop a web-based information sharing platform to track the commitment of countries, including plans to reduce iron deficiency anemia by 40% of current levels and neural tube defects to less than six per 10,000 live births by 2030 as part of “A Wiser Region” agenda.

The Training was made possible thanks to the support of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in partnership with the Azerbaijan Food Safety Agency, the Food Fortification Initiative, and UNICEF.