Tag: FAO

Micronutrient Forum Conference: Vitamins and Minerals in the Changing Environment

October 8, 2026    Nutrition specialists gathering in Accra last week returned to a recurring challenge: how to translate evidence on preventing malnutrition into policies and programs that reach people at scale.   Several thousand nutrition and aid specialists participated in person and online in the Micronutrient Forum’s 7th Global Conference, held in Accra, Ghana, from September 28 to October 1.     With the theme “Nutrition at the Frontiers of a Changing Environment,” the conference brought together research, policy, and program experience across nutrition, food systems, climate, and development.

Presentations examined climate-resilient, nutrient-rich crop varieties; improvements in food storage and processing; and innovative financing. Across these topics, speakers emphasized the importance of political leadership, sustained investment, and coordination.

Presenter Ziauddin Hyder reflected on the event:

“Ending malnutrition requires more than isolated projects. It demands strong political leadership, sustainable domestic financing, and coordinated action across sectors. Bangladesh is committed to transforming this vision into action by integrating nutrition into primary health care and ensuring that multisectoral investments converge to improve maternal and child nutrition.”

Participants included Action Against Hunger, World Vision, Catholic Relief Services, the Hunger Project, GAIN, Population Action International, AGRA, iDE, UNICEF, IFPRI, FAO, WFP and the Ghanaian Government.  Private sector participants included BioAnalyt Gmbh, Hexagon Nutrition, and Particles for Humanity.  A number of presentations were by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) or IFPRI. The Government of Ghana, the African Union (AU), and the African Development Bank (AfDB) were major participants as well.

Dr. Saskia Osendarp, who is Executive Director of the Micronutrient Forum, called on the international community to not only take stock of progress but also translate evidence into actionable recommendations for research, policy, and programs, while building on and celebrating African leadership in nutrition.

Presentations covered a wide range of recent progress in battling malnutrition, spanning climate change, behavior change, processed foods, testing for deficiencies, fortification, nutrient supplements and funding.

FORTIFICATION

A widely echoed takeaway from the forum was the growing body of evidence on what works: across diverse contexts, food fortification emerged as one of the most cost-effective and impactful public health interventions, especially when implemented with mandatory legislation.

The Food Fortification Initiative presented a systematic review about the effectiveness of large-scale food fortification across 10 fortification vehicles, plus reviews on milk fortification, fortified soy/fish sauce, the impact of mandatory folic acid fortification on neural tube defects, congenital heart defects, and clefts, folate status, methods for estimating fortified-food coverage, integration of fortification into food systems, and a new rapid spot assay for zinc in fortified grains.

The ten-person CRS delegation concluded that: “We know what works. Now is the time to scale it,” supported by abstracts from their fortification work in Madagascar, Niger, and Ghana.  CRS highlighted how its fortification programming in West Africa,  built with governments, regional institutions, the private sector, and civil society, has strengthened policy frameworks, regulatory monitoring, quality assurance, and compliance, improving access to micronutrient-rich foods “for millions of vulnerable populations.”

Gaps in Compliance:  Research from countries like Bangladesh and Nigeria revealed significant compliance gaps, particularly highlighting the disparity between branded and unbranded staple foods (like edible oil and salt). Experts noted that markets frequently fail to deliver adequately fortified foods to consumers due to these blind spots.  From Cambodia, a 2023 cross-sectional assessment of vendors in about 150 public rural primary schools, related to unhealthy school foods found that 98% of vendors said they knew the directive, and most could identify sugary and energy drinks as prohibited.  Yet, that awareness did not change what was sold.

A rapid zinc test may make food-fortification monitoring much easier.  The Food Fortification Initiative featured an abstract about developing and validating a qualitative spot assay for zinc in fortified cereals. The associated method uses xylenol orange, which produces pink or purple spots when added zinc is present in refined wheat flour or fortified white rice. Testing takes only 10–15 minutes, excluding reagent preparation.  This gives millers and inspectors a relatively inexpensive screening tool for checking whether zinc was added. It detects presence, however, rather than establishing that the food contains the legally required concentration.

GAIN’s contributions included Svenja Jungjohann’s presentations on discrepancies between market assessments and household exposure in Bangladesh, and compliance gaps in branded and unbranded oil and salt in Bangladesh and Nigeria. Annette Mongina Nyangaresi presented implementation research about digital fortification-quality systems.

Latin America has been a historic pioneer in large-scale food fortification (vitamin A–fortified sugar in Guatemala, near-universal salt iodization, wheat flour fortification in 18 countries.  Rice fortification (already mandatory in Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Panama, and being developed in the Dominican Republic, Brazil and Colombia) was flagged as an underused frontier.

see:  https://micronutrientforum.org/micronutrient-data-innovation-alliance/guidelines-on-large-scale-food-fortification-indicators-and-use/?ct=t(EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_3_12_2024_15_25_COPY_01)

SUPPLEMENTS FOR A WIDE RANGE OF VITAMINS AND MINERALS

There was a heavy push for expanding distribution of “multiple micronutrient supplements” (MMS) for pregnant women, with  48 countries now exploring or implementing it, noting that women prefer a full 180-day supply, which supports adherence.   Vitamin Angels, profiled earlier in Hunger Notes, presented about scaling up multiple micronutrient supplements, and Ghana’s phased rollout of Multiple Micronutrient Supplements (MMS) focused on evidence building and system preparedness.

Participants noted that supplement packaging is a sensitive part of nutritional efficacy: repackaging can reduce vitamin potency.

A poster looked at the effect of nutrition education on multiple micronutrient supplementation knowledge, attitudes, and practices among pregnant women in Abuja, Nigeria.  In selected antenatal clinics, structured nutrition education produced large gains: about 89% reached a good knowledge score and 81.6% a positive attitude toward use of multiple micronutrient inputs.

One session moderated by Jian Yan and Parul Christian of Johns Hopkins, addressed dose-response trials in undernourished women. A supplement’s nominal nutrient content does not by itself establish whether it corrects deficiency. Dose-response research seeks amounts that achieve adequate status without excessive exposure.

UNDERSTANDING MICRONUTRIENT DEFICIENCIES

UC Davis and Cambridge experts underscored that half the world has inadequate intake of at least one micronutrient, and biological stressors amplify these gaps.  Sight and Life  presented about anemia among women, noting that anemia is the #1 global cause of lost DALYs for adolescents 10–19,  University researchers emphasized that blood loss, infections, and genetic conditions are major contributors to anemia—often overshadowing simple iron deficiency narratives.  This has implications for screening, treatment protocols, and national anemia strategies.

Dr. Parmi Suchdev presented about “Micronutrients, inflammation, and life-course vulnerability,” explaining how systemic inflammation can change or obscure bio-markers of nutrient deficiencies.

CHILD NUTRITION

The Child Health and Mortality Prevention Surveillance (CHAMPS) team presented key research highlighting maternal health and life-course vulnerabilities: Malnutrition is the main underlying cause in older children. It was the most frequent underlying cause among infants and children (20.8%), with sepsis and pneumonia more often the final event. An earlier analysis found malnutrition causal or significant in 39.5% of these deaths, 89.1% of which also had an infectious cause.

World Vision presented about father-to-father support groups which helped exclusive breastfeeding increase from 64.8% to 94.7%, while women meeting minimum dietary diversity increased from 11.2% to 54.9%.  WV also presented about strengthening RUTF supply chains for continuity of care of child wasting, with West Africa as their example.

see:  https://micronutrientforum.org/micronutrient-data-innovation-alliance/nutrition-modeling-consortium/?ct=t(EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_3_12_2024_15_25_COPY_01)

CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACTS

University scholars presented evidence that climate change is reducing the micronutrient content of staple crops.   Crop science experts showed that rising CO₂ levels and erratic rainfall patterns lower iron, zinc, and protein density in cereals.  At the same time, rapid dietary transitions in African cities are reducing micronutrient diversity, increasing reliance on processed foods, and stressing traditional food systems.

The AGRA Regional Director, Sunil Dahiya:  “Higher carbon dioxide levels reduce the zinc and iron in staples like rice and wheat. The bowl looks the same, but there is less nutrition in it.  ….The crop is changing.”

DATA AND LEARNING

Discussions emphasized the urgent need to improve the timeliness, availability, and sourcing of data feeding into the Global Fortification Data Exchange (GFDx) to help policymakers track scaling progress in real-time.

The Nutrition in City Ecosystems (NICE) Project emphasized south-south learning between Asian and African cities, showcasing how urban areas can lead in addressing micronutrient deficiencies.

Action Against Hunger, PAI, CORE Group, FP2030, HMHB, and SUN’s Civil Society Network co-convened an October 2 follow-up gathering on linking nutrition, family planning, and maternal and child health.

Overall, the conference reinforced the need for a unified, evidence-based agenda linking nutrition directly to improved child health outcomes and survival rates.

Overall, the conference reinforced the need for a unified, evidence-based agenda linking nutrition directly to improved child health outcomes and survival rates.

FURTHER INFORMATION

In the future, presentations will be available at:  https://mnfconference.org/

The program is seen at:  https://booklet.kenes.com/export/mnf26

See also:  https://www.myjoyonline.com/measure-food-systems-progress-not-only-by-productivity-but-also-ability-to-deliver-healthy-diets-agra/

GAIN’s poster presentations and side event about business:  https://www.gainhealth.org/events/micronutrient-forum-7th-global-conference-mnf#gain-participation

AGRA’s presentation:  https://youtu.be/4SjNVlZyjb8

Food Fortification Initiative:  https://ffinetwork.org/micronutrient-forum-7th-global-conference/

IFPRI:  https://www.ifpri.org/event/ifpri-micronutrient-forum-7th-global-conference/

– Edited by Steven Hansch of the World Hunger Education Service

2026 State of Food Insecurity & Nutrition in the World

August 19, 2026          Global malnutrition has declined according to the new 2026 State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) report (jointly by FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP, and WHO; focus: “Understanding and addressing the high cost of a healthy diet”).  SOFI has become an annual common reference about global malnutrition.  The image above left from the 2026 report shows the reports trend analysis of the decline in the number of under-nourished children worldwide.

It estimates that 645 million people were hungry during 2025, while approximately 2.7 billion could not afford a healthy diet. The improvement in global prevalence occured while there was deterioration in parts of Africa and some conflict-affected countries.

For the first time, Africa recorded the highest absolute number of undernourished people at 309 million, surpassing Asia.  The average global cost of a healthy diet rose to $4.28 Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) per person per day in 2025, up from $3.44 in 2021. As a result, almost 2.69 billion people (roughly one-third of humanity) could not afford a healthy diet.

SOFI about prevalence of malnutrition:

“In Africa [it] decreased from a peak of 20.3 percent in 2024 to 20.0 percent in 2025, still nearly 4 percentage points higher than in 2015 when the SDG Agenda was launched.  However, this marginal improvement in prevalence from 2024 to 2025 did not translate into a decrease in the absolute number of people facing hunger, due to the growing size of the population in Africa.”

Looking at general dietary diversity, including micronutrients:  In Africa, 66.6% of the population could not afford a healthy diet in 2025, compared to 28.9% in Asia and 25.7% in Latin America.

For these balanced diets with micronutrients:  An estimated ~30.8% of children aged 6–23 months get a minimally diverse diet (largely unchanged over a decade); ~62.7% of women aged 15–49 meet minimum dietary diversity.

These trends suggest that hunger is not inevitable when supported by economic policies, social protection, and investments in agrifood systems—but progress remains slow and insufficient for the 2030 Zero Hunger target of many governments and the SDG.

Projections still point to ~510–520 million people being hungry in 2030, with ongoing, uncertain risks from conflicts, El Niño, and reduced financing.

The report presents scenarios of progress against Zero Hunger targes by continent and scenarios, extrapolating from the experiences of recent decades.

To access the full report:  as PDF

– Contributed by WHES Board member, Steven Hansch

Annual UN Report on Global Food Crises, 2026

April 26, 2026

The 2026 Global Report on Food Crises (GRFC), jointly published on April 24 by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the World Food Programme (WFP), and the Global Network Against Food Crises, estimates that some 35.5 million children were acutely malnourished across 23 nutrition crisis countries.  “This tenth edition… reveals an alarming reality: hunger is increasingly being used as a weapon of war.”  

“Ending hunger is a test of our shared humanity. It is a test we cannot fail.” the U.N. Secretary-General wrote in the Foreword.

In 2025, approximately 266 million people across 47 countries and territories faced crises or acute food insecurity, requiring urgent humanitarian assistance.  The report discusses rates of malnutrition based on medical clinic screening in Gaza and western Sudan, including El Fasher and Kadugli.   Much of the rest of the Sudan is also seen as at risk.

The Global Network Against Food Crises itself is described as an alliance including the UN, EU, Germany’s BMZ, UK FCDO, Ireland, g7+, and other governmental/non-governmental agencies.

Comparing reports over the years, the trajectory from 2020 to 2025 is stark.  In 2020, approximately 155 million people faced high levels of acute food insecurity) across 55 countries, already a sharp rise from 105 million in 2016.  By 2025, that figure stood at 266 million across 47 countries, though the 2026 report explicitly cautions that the apparent drop from the 2023 peak of 282 million partly reflects reduced country coverage rather than genuine improvement. The share of the analyzed population in acute food insecurity nearly doubled from about 11 percent in 2016 to nearly 23 percent in 2025, and had already crossed 21 percent by 2020.

In 2019 and 2020, David Beasley, as the Executive Director of the World Food Programme (WFP), highlighted the risk of multiple concurrent famines, while the organization was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2020.  Beasley delivered the Nobel lecture where he called for action to prevent widespread starvation.    In 2020, the primary crisis concentration was already in a familiar set of countries, Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, the Sudan, Syria, and Yemen, which the 2026 report notes have been among the ten largest food crises for most of the decade.

Myanmar [Burma] and South Sudan were newly classified as very severe nutrition crises in 2026, categories they did not hold in the earlier period.

Meanwhile, some populations showed meaningful improvement. Bangladesh saw a significant 32 percent decrease in acutely food-insecure people between 2024 and 2025, and Syria reduced its share from 39 to 29 percent of the population — though both remained at alarming absolute levels.

The report covers various causes of malnutrition, including war and climate. Weather extremes had grown enormously as a driver — from 15 countries affecting 15.7 million people in 2020 to 16 countries affecting 87.5 million people in 2025, a roughly five-fold increase in affected population. The 2023–2024 El Niño, described as one of the strongest on record, drove much of this, devastating Southern Africa in particular.

The report and its annexes reviewed methods.  For instance, WFP conducted 800,000 survey interviews in 2025, a 30 percent reduction from 1.1 million the prior year. FAO’s Data in Emergencies surveys fell 31 percent, from about 170,000 to 118,000 interviews.  An ongoing Acute Food Insecurity Trends Study was specifically designed to correct for temporal, methodological, population, and spatial omission biases that make year-to-year comparisons unreliable. This work was not yet in place for the 2020 edition. Additionally, the 2026 report notes specific methodology changes in individual countries — for instance, Zimbabwe’s IPC methodology changed between periods, and Uganda shifted from FEWS NET to IPC classification, adding 3.3 million people to Phase 3 counts simply through the methodological switch.

Access the report:

https://openknowledge.fao.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/86067cbb-9396-4e7d-8d19-e60ad00d2f73/content

Technical notes:  https://www.fightfoodcrises.net/sites/default/files/resource/file/2026_GRFC_APP_TECHNOTES.pdf

https://www.fightfoodcrises.net/global-report-food-crises

https://reliefweb.int/report/world/2026-joint-analysis-global-report-food-crises

Past reports:

https://www.fightfoodcrises.net/knowledge-hub/search?f%5B0%5D=series%3A39

– Contributed by Steven Hansch for Hunger Notes

Threat of Child Malnutrition in Iran Amid U.S.–Iran Conflict

February 28, 2026       The U.S.–Iran war that began today, 28 February 2026, threatens to sharply worsen malnutrition among children under five in low-income urban neighborhoods of strike zones (Tehran, Isfahan, Kermanshah) and in rural border provinces (e.g., Sistan-Baluchestan and Kurdistan) that already experience high malnutrition rates.

Iran, with a total population of 93 million people, has 7 ½ million children under five years of age, which is more children than Germany, the UK, Canada, Iraq, Syria, Italy, Turkey, or France.

Over the last few decades the occurrence of childhood stunting (a form of long-term malnutrition) and of wasting (short-term) malnutrition have declined in Iran, reflected by the government’s attention to treating malnutrition.   However, studies in southern Iran from 2018 to 2023 show a significant increase in underweight and wasting among young children, with the annual % change of severe wasting increasing by 8.9%.  Nationally, the rate of wasting has averaged 4.2%, which is medium for regional and peer countries.  Iran’s Ministry of Health and Medical Education (MoHME) manages child malnutrition programs through primary healthcare centers, hospitals, and nutrition initiatives.  Treatment follows protocols similar to WHO/UNICEF guidelines for community-based management of acute malnutrition, which emphasize outpatient therapeutic care using Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF) for severe malnutrition.

The most widespread micronutrient deficiency diseases in Iran include vitamin D (rickets), iron (anemia), vitamin A, and zinc deficiency.  Iran addresses these through national programs (e.g., supplementation, fortification of foods like flour with iron/folate, salt iodization, and targeted UNICEF-supported interventions in high-risk provinces), but challenges persist due to economic factors, dietary habits, and regional disparities.

Even before the current war threats, Iran’s food economy was struggling under the weight of international sanctions and mismanagement.  The conflict will further reduce Iranian families’ ability to afford food.  In fact, the protests that broke out in December 2025 were in part over increased food prices after the rial plunged against the U.S. dollar.   There has been criticism by Iranians that their government has failed to present a clear emergency response plan, leaving citizens to fend for themselves. 

Iran produces much of its own wheat, dates, barley, rice, pistachios, walnuts, citrus fruits, and saffron.  It imports rice, cooking oils, soybeans, sugar, tea, and dairy.  The fighting will disrupt Iran’s ability to import food commodities, tightening supply.  Agricultural supply chains, transportation networks, storage facilities, and water infrastructure are all vulnerable.  Damaged roads and ports will impede food distribution across the country.

Urban bombardment now underway in Tehran and other major cities will displace families.  Reuters today reports that Iranians have fled cities in search of safety, rushed to stock up on food, and formed long queues at fuel stations as attacks by the United States and Israel spread fear and panic throughout the country.  Iranian government messages have explicitly encouraged people to leave Tehran and other targeted cities to avoid attacks.  This kind of internal displacement typically leads to overcrowded towns, strain on services, and informal settlements on the periphery of safer cities.

Internally displaced populations lose access to stable food sources, income, and caregiving routines.  Young children are disproportionately harmed by the disruption of feeding practices and by unhygienic displacement conditions that compound malnutrition with infectious disease.

Iran is known as a country that takes care of refugees.  Estimates vary, but UNHCR and other agencies report roughly some 3.8 million refugees and people in refugee-like situations in Iran as of 2025, overwhelmingly from Afghanistan and a smaller number from Iraq and other countries.

Iran has been prone to disasters due to large earthquakes and famines.  As well, in February 1972, a week-long series of storms  brought up to 26 feet (8 meters) of snow in rural areas of western Iran which buried over 200 villages, killing thousands.

Iran also suffered severe famines in 1870-72 and during the First and Second World Wars.  The most recent UN Food and Agriculture Organization report about Iran (November 2025) notes that persistent dry weather has hampered winter wheat plantings, leading to an estimated cereal production nearly 10% below the five-year average in 2025.  It found that wheat prices in Tehran had risen 50% and rice prices had tripled, compared to the previous year.

Iran has a fairly extensive domestic social protection system by regional standards, though it has faced significant strains in recent years.  The Imam Khomeini Relief Committee (IKRC) is one of the largest non-governmental charitable organizations in the world by some measures. It operates under government supervision and provides cash transfers, food assistance, healthcare subsidies, and vocational training to millions of low-income Iranians. It draws on religious endowments (waqf) and public donations alongside state funding.   The State Welfare Organization (SWO) handles a broader range of social services including disability support, elderly care, and assistance for vulnerable families.

International aid agencies help Iran in disasters, including the Red Cross.  The national Red Crescent society of Iran, part of the global IFRC network, has deep roots in domestic disaster relief, rescue, and healthcare operations.  The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has been working in Iran since the late 1970s.  The ICRC provides humanitarian services related to conflict-affected populations, health, and protection.

Médecins Sans Frontières (also known as Doctors without Borders) has been operating health programs in Iran.  Many other international NGOs have been hesitant to work in Iran, where the government distrusts Western organizations.  An exception has been Relief International (RI), which was founded in 1990 following the catastrophic Manjil–Rudbar earthquake in northern Iran.

The convergence of active conflict, pre-existing economic strain, and disrupted supply chains creates a compounding crisis for Iran’s most vulnerable — particularly children under five.  International humanitarian organizations face their own obstacles operating in Iran, given longstanding government suspicion of Western NGOs. The children most at risk — those in strike zones like Tehran and Isfahan, and those in already-malnourished border provinces like Sistan-Baluchestan — are precisely the populations least able to weather further disruption to food access, clean water, and caregiving. Without rapid and coordinated humanitarian response, the malnutrition crisis that predates this conflict will deepen sharply, with consequences that will outlast the fighting itself.

 

–  Contributed by WHES board member, Steven Hansch

 

 

 

 

 

Hunger Hotspots Report, Summer 2025

Hotspots for elevated hunger and malnutrition during the summer of 2025 were highlighted for Sudan, Gaza, South Sudan, Haiti and Mali in the new report produced by the Food and Agricultural Organization of the UN, along with the World Food Program, with support from the European Union and the Global Network against Food Crises.  This is a semi-annual report published collaboratively by U.N. agencies.

See:  https://www.fightfoodcrises.net/sites/default/files/resource/file/HungerHotspots2025_CD5684EN.pdf

As reported on Reliefweb:  This report makes it veryclear: hunger today is not a distant threat – it is a daily emergency for millions,” FAO Director-General QU Dongyu said. “We must act now, and act together, to save lives and safeguard livelihoods.  Protecting people’s farms and animals to ensure they can keep producing food where they are, even in the toughest and harshest conditions … is essential.”

“This report is a red alert. We know where hunger is rising and we know who is at risk,” said Cindy McCain, World Food Programme Executive Director. “We have the tools and experience to respond, but without funding and access, we cannot save lives.”

In the Sudan, conditions are expected to persist due to the continuing conflict and ongoing displacement, particularly in the Greater Kordofan and Greater Darfur regions.  Displacement will further increase while humanitarian access remains restricted. The circumstances are driving the country toward the risk of economic collapse, with high inflation severely limiting food access. by the poor.  Around 24.6 million people were projected to face “Crisis” level food insecurity or worse.

In Haiti, record levels of gang violence and insecurity are displacing communities and crippling aid access.  in Mali, high grain prices and ongoing conflict are eroding the coping capacities of the most vulnerable households, particularly in conflict-affected areas.

In contrast to prior reports, however:   Ethiopia, Kenya, Lebanon, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Zambia, and Zimbabwe have been removed from the Hunger Hotspots list.  In East and Southern Africa, as well as in Niger, better climatic conditions for harvests and fewer weather extremes have eased food security pressures. Lebanon has also been delisted following reduced intensity of military operations.

Vdieo of the report launch:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0_t_tCH-5s&t=11s

https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/hunger-hotspots-fao-wfp-early-warnings-acute-food-insecurity-june-october-2025-outlook-enarit