More than 70,000 Lady Health Workers working at village level provided services for micronutrient supplementation and counseling on growth promotion, maternal and child nutrition, breast feeding and complementary feeding on a regular basis.

UNICEF successfully advocated for the approval of a national policy on micronutrient supplementation, and the Government considers the UNICEF supported Rural Drug Fund project as an effective model of providing essential drugs to rural areas.

Micronutrient Deficiency Control Programmes. These include Control of Iodine Deficiency Disorder through universalising Iodized Salt Control of Iron Deficiency through Flour Fortification with iron Vitamin A Fortification of edible oil ghee and Vitamin A Supplementation for children from 6 months to five years of age as a regular part of National Immunization Days (NIDS and Sub NIDS).

Despite the phasing down of National Immunization Days, vitamin A supplementation coverage remained steady.

Interest has increased in weekly supplementation for adolescent girls and in the fortification of flour.

In 2004, UNICEF supported vitamin A supplementation programmes in 89 countries with high child mortality.

Over 500 million capsules from the Micronutrient Initiative were supplied to 74 countries in 2004.

Food fortification and iron supplementation are widely ranked among the most cost effective interventions for poverty reduction.

Assistance in alerting Palau to any legislation that needs modification or supplementation, as well as providing model relevant legislation.

Joint missions by UNICEF and the Initiative were undertaken in 19 countries to identify constraints to achieving high supplementation coverage.

Areas of cooperation will draw on the CCCs, such as rapid assessments, and making available immunization, nutritional supplementation and clean drinking water.

There are now a number of nutrition programmes in place intended to deal with protein energy malnutrition and micronutrient deficiencies among children.

Measles vaccination and vitamin A supplementation were provided in 29 countries affected by emergencies as part of the UNICEF Core Commitments for Children.

Some 21 countries achieved over 70 per cent coverage of children under five years with two rounds of supplementation, thereby conferring full life saving protection.

A good example comes from Nepal, whose local centres are attended by over 10,000 young children and are supported by parent orientation, iron supplementation, growth monitoring and deworming efforts.

For the health and nutrition component of the national programme, infant, under 5 and maternal mortality, along with the incidence of underweight and micronutrient deficiency, have been reduced since 2000.

(5) National Commission on Micronutrients. From 1996 to 2000, this Commission implemented three major intervention strategies targeting children and pregnant women vitamin A and iron supplementation, fortification of food products and dietary diversification

The United Nations Foundation, Rotary International and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria were the top three contributors to UNICEF in this group, followed by GAVI and the Micronutrient Initiative.

Expanding immunization and micronutrient coverage are perhaps the most critical measures. Spending a billion dollars on such initiatives could save one million lives annually and create economic benefits worth more than 20 billion a year.

The figure is all the more unfathomable, given that, alongside this massive wastage and loss, 840 million people experience chronic hunger on a daily basis. Many millions more suffer from silent hunger malnutrition and micronutrient deficiencies.

UNICEF is working closely with private sector partners, the Flour Fortification Initiative, the Micronutrient Initiative, the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition and the Asian Development Bank, in efforts including food fortification testing in China and Viet Nam.

Caring behaviours, including exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of life, continued breastfeeding with appropriate and timely complementary feeding, nutrient dense foods and supplementation where necessary, are all essential interventions to reduce child deaths and promote healthy development.

Her Government was also doing more to ensure that the health needs of Indonesian children were met in a timely fashion, through its programmes on maternal and newborn mortality, micronutrient deficiency, child malnutrition and vaccine preventable diseases, particularly polio and measles.

Promising new developments, such as pneumoccocal and rotavirus vaccines, artemisinin based combination therapy for the treatment of malaria, or the use of multi micronutrient supplements and home fortificants, are being considered for introduction in national policies by a number of developing countries.

They organized on an annual basis competitions on the occasion of Micronutrient Day on 1 2 June to monitor the health of newborn babies and provide sufficient vitamins for children and iron pills for pregnant women, 15 year old girls and post natal women.

3. Considers it intolerable that there are around 840 million undernourished people in the world, that every seven seconds a child under the age of 10 dies, directly or indirectly, of hunger somewhere in the world and that more than 2 billion people worldwide suffer from hidden hunger or micronutrient malnutrition

More research is also needed to improve the nutritional quality of staple foods by fortifying them with iron, vitamin A, and zinc to help solve widespread micronutrient deficiencies. We must also strengthen food safety from production to consumption, including improvements in our understanding of the interaction between the food system and human health, particularly zoonotic diseases and the effects of pesticides.

International NGOs and technical networks such as Medecins Sans Frontières, the Micronutrient Initiative, the International Council for the Control of Iodine Deficiency Disorders (IDD), the IDD Network, Helen Keller International, Oxfam, the World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action, the International Baby Food Action Network, CARE and Plan International are involved alongside UNICEF in global advocacy, resource mobilization and country level action, including emergency response.

3. Considers it intolerable that there are about 842 million undernourished people in the world, that every five seconds a child under the age of 5 dies from hunger related diseases and that more than 2 billion people throughout the world suffer from hidden hunger or micronutrient malnutrition when, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the world produces more than enough food to feed its entire population