Micronutrient Forum

The Forum's flagship activity in 2023 was the 6th Micronutrient Forum Global Conference held online and in The Hague, The Netherlands from October 16-20. Over 2,200 experts, scientists, practitioners, and public officials from around the world and across disciplines came together to explore the interdependence of micronutrient nutrition and the resilience of individuals, communities, and systems, in the context of a world where global crises are the new normal. More specifically, the Conference aimed to: - Better understand the role of micronutrients in improving resilience and consider potential approaches to exploiting this role so that individuals, households, and communities can achieve greater resilience in a world of shocks. - Offer an opportunity to rethink and establish a compelling and evidence-based agenda on the interdependence of nutrition and resilience, with a gender-responsive focus. - Propose a research agenda that can advance understanding of nutrition and resilience, support cost-effective micronutrient interventions, and accelerate progress toward global nutrition and broader development goals. The program consisted of 9 plenary sessions, 39 concurrent and 46 sponsored sessions, and 677 poster presentations which resulted in 148 hours of recorded content. At the closing ceremony themed, "A Road to Resilience," the Forum issued a Way Forward Statement. This evidence-based policy tool aims to support the efforts of advocates and civil society stakeholders as they urge funders, policymakers, and leaders to increase investments in nutrition interventions during significant global events such as the upcoming Nutrition for Growth Summit in Paris in March 2025.

The Micronutrient Data Innovation Alliance (DInA) has made significant progress in 2023, especially in providing support to national actors. DInA provided grants to teams in Colombia, Ethiopia, India, Malawi and Sierra Leone, each addressing a critical aspect along the micronutrient data value chain. Also, DInA and the Learning Network on Nutrition Surveillance (LeNNS) agreed to collaborate to co-organize an African regional meeting on issues around anemia data. The preparations for this meeting started in October 2023, whereas the meeting itself took place end of July 2024 in Nairobi. In 2023, DInA has also successfully integrated the Global Fortification Data Exchange (GFDx), ensuring the coordination and planning with its partners, the Flour Fortification Initiative (FFI), the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), and the Iodine Global Network (IGN). GFDx will especially concentrate on enhancing national stakeholders' utilization of the data platform. To fill the gap in micronutrient biomarker data, DInA initiated the development of approaches to model vitamin and mineral deficiency (VMD) prevalence using proxy measures. As a first step available data sources are compiled by country, year, and type of data availability for all countries within West Africa and for two additional micronutrient data-rich countries (Ethiopia and Bangladesh) for external model validation. To amplify the impact of the online micronutrient lexicon, DInA submitted a paper to PLOS ONE and expanded the lexicon with regulatory terms. The updated lexicon will form the foundation of the glossary for the WHO's updated Guidelines on Food Fortification with Micronutrients - the ange Book', to which DInA contributes. In addition, DInA contributes by writing two chapters for an updated compendium on Univeral Salt Iodization which will be published by UNICEF in September 2024.