Nutrition

Improving and Saving Lives through Nutrition

• Canada mobilizes international nutrition efforts
• Nutrition: At the heart of CIDA's priorities
• Recent achievements in combatting malnutrition

Canada mobilizes international nutrition efforts

Since the 1990s, Canada has played a global leadership role in bringing international attention to nutrition and in supporting critical nutrition programs that have reduced child mortality.

First and foremost, Canada, as a founding partner of the Micronutrient Initiative,  internationally promotes nutrition supplements that benefit millions of people. Since 1997, Canada has been a global leader among donor countries that support worldwide Vitamin A distribution programs.

Nutrition is an essential element of Canada's G8 2009 L'Aquila Commitment, which includes sustainable agricultural development activities aimed at producing food with higher nutritional value.

Nutrition is also a key priority of Canada's Muskoka Initiative on Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health, launched in 2010, which aims to save the lives of women and children in developing countries.

Invited by the United Nations Secretary-General, Canada sits on the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Lead Group alongside 26 global leaders championing nutrition. Canada will play a lead role in convening the SUN high-level event at the 2012 United Nations General Assembly.

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Nutrition: At the heart of CIDA's priorities

CIDA supports key nutrition initiatives:

• In October 2011, Canada announced increased support for global food security through the World Food Programme and the Canadian Foodgrains Bank. This increased support will help Canada achieve its objectives with regard to food security, children and youth, maternal, newborn and child health, and nutrition.
• Canada also continues to support the REACH Initiative. This initiative aims to help the governments of developing countries to strengthen the effectiveness of nutrition activities.
• To strengthen the role of agriculture in providing access to nutritious food, Canada supports efforts by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research in the biofortification sector.
• In 2011, Canada committed additional funds to HarvestPlus to contribute to the release of high-yielding, micronutrient-rich crop varieties in Africa and Asia by 2013.
• Making nutritious, good-quality food more available and accessible is a priority of CIDA's Food Security Strategy. CIDA's Children and Youth Strategy also considers the issue of nutrition.

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Recent achievements in combatting malnutrition

Canada's efforts are achieving results:

• As a major supporter of school feeding programs, Canada helped feed nearly 3.5 million children in Africa in 2010-2011.
• With Canada's support, the number of children receiving two doses of vitamin A supplements annually has more than doubled, from 41 percent in 2000 to 86 percent in 2010, resulting in a global reduction in child deaths, now down to 7.6 million annually from 12.4 million in 1990.
• Canada's longstanding support to the Micronutrient Initiative for salt iodization-critical for child development-has helped bring the number of people who have access to iodized salt from below 20 percent in 1990 to more than 70 percent today.
• In 2010-2011, CIDA's support helped the Micronutrient Initiative provide more than 267 million children with Vitamin A supplements, ensured that 328 million people had iodized salt, distributed 5.6 million zinc tables to children and fortified 39,950 metric tonnes of food with iron.
• In 2010, with support from CIDA and other donors, the World Food Programme reached 109.2 million people in 75 countries with 4.6 million metric tonnes of food.
• In Ethiopia, Community Health Days organized, with CIDA's support, in 100 districts provided 1.5 million children under five with vitamin A supplements and one million children aged two to six with deworming treatment necessary for good nutrition.
• In Malawi, CIDA's involvement in nutrition has led to an increase in community therapeutic care coverage from 42 percent to 69 percent and allowed for the procurement of 408 metric tonnes of ready-to-use therapeutic food for the treatment of acute malnutrition in children, representing 63 percent of the national requirement.
• With support from Canada, HarvestPlus distributed the orange sweet potato, rich in vitamin A, to more than 10,000 households in northern Mozambique from 2007 to 2009. HarvestPlus recently launched the dissemination of vitamin A-rich cassava in Nigeria, targeting more than 50,000 households by 2013.

All of these proven activities, focusing on nutrition, support achieving certain Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015: to eradicate extreme poverty hunger (MDG 1), to reduce child mortality (MDG 4), to improve maternal health (MDG 5) and, indirectly, to combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and, other diseases (MDG 6).